Restoring the Wind
by Sunruner
Summary: Her absence did not disturb him because she was dead, and he did not seek her out because he was lonely. He went because she belonged to him, and someone had taken her away. SesshoumaruxKagura, Post-Naraku. Sequel is up! Check profile!
1. Prologue: The Way Things Are

**Wait, Sunny's writing a _what?_**

**I'll have you know that back in the day I was a huge Inuyasha fan, and my first fic on this site (my first two, actually!) were both in this fandom! I got fed up with the pace of the anime, and didn't like the drawing style of the manga, but now I've learned that the series finally ended so I was able to watch all the "Final Act" episodes.**

**Kagome and Inuyasha's Theme.**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Prologue: The Way Things Are

Three years. It was not a long time; the half-breed was merely impatient and chose to live by human standards, Sesshoumaru was above such restrictions. After Naraku's defeat and the final dissolution of the Shikon Jewel his perception of time had altered back to a more stable, cursory sense of weeks and months. He maintained a solid grasp of the seasons only to mind how long he was apart from Rin, bringing replacement garments to her in the human village when he deemed her old ones too worn.

In three _short_ years his already impressive territories had expanded, bordering closely on his mother's realm without encroaching too far into her forests and hills. He left to her what he did not need nor feel any obligation to take, and she understood that if she tried his patience he would fight her and he would win. Sesshomaru had no qualms with attacking family, such filial obligations were beneath him.

He was at the other edge of his realm now, at a boarder he could not expand: the sea. The smell of the brine was thick on the rocks and plants even up here high on the cliff overlooking the blue-green water. Shelves of sheer slate grey descended down from his position, the sun brilliant and white overhead where it was just past mid-day.

But the wind... that was something else. And it was not a difference he could name either, just a warmth which, sometimes, spread between the fingers of either of his hands when he turned or felt the wind. It was a pressure against his throat, or his lips, when the air moved past him. It could not be seen or tracked, but it was still tangible, still unexplained. When he rested, he awoke to the feeling of a gentle stroke over the crescent moon marking his forehead, or the graze of something soft along the fuchsia marks on his cheeks.

The wind never pulled him, though it tugged at his sleeve at times, or brushed across his chest. It was not leading him anywhere, it was simply present and persistent. It carried petals to him when there were no flowers nearby, but not often, and never very many. Only if he lingered in a place for more than a day could he turn and find a handful of small red flower blossoms collected on the ground somewhere in his presence.

When he slept, when he _chose _to sleep, he would hear something, but there was nothing to hear.

None of this bothered him and he didn't endure it: it was simply what was. The only reason he thought of it was... because when he turned his face into the wind, he _expected_ that feeling against his lips. And when he spread his fingers just-so at his side, he _waited_ to feel the warmth slip between them.

Jaken was not here, he had sent his servant away to take care of some minor task, to speak to a petty demon chief whom Sesshoumaru would not deign to visit himself. He chose instead to stand here, alone, on the edge of his realm.

It made him think of freedom, because that was what she had wanted. Free as the wind which knew no boundaries or boarders. When a gust of wind dredged up a small feather, white and shed from the wing of a gull, the Demon Lord watched it rise on the up-draft, spinning hazardously through the air. He held one clawed hand out, his restored left, and just before the warm fibres could graze his skin- another gust of wind and it was sent off, back down towards the roaring waves of the western sea.

"Kagura." Because no one was here, no demon or spirit save the one he addressed. She was there but she wasn't, sensible but intangible, forcing his hand to make the question known. He kept his gold eyes trained on the far western horizon, watching the world beyond his domain. "Do you linger, or do you stay?" Was she a spirit held back by something like regret, or was she free to come and go as she pleased?

This question, he determined, was not important. What was important was that she did not answer him: the same feather was recalled from its downward spiral and brushed its sun-bleached side across his cheek. The wind carried the feather further away with a brief gust that sent his long hair blowing out behind him. This, to him, was not a suitable answer and, he decided, if she was bound then he would not allow her captor to interfere with his business. And if she was free then her insolence would not go unpunished.

He left the cliff side. He would collect Jaken and deal with the dishonourable chief personally, then he would deal with the wind.

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><p><strong>The first and last chapters are the shortest, and I know this because this story is finished and sitting on my laptop's hard-drive! There are 19(-ish) chapters in total, and updates will be every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.<strong>

**Now, despite just watching 26 episodes of the Sub, plus the third movie all in subtitles, I've tried not to use the Japanese terminology in this fic. It just gets messy with different available spellings and the ease of making mistakes. There are, however, a few places where I didn't hold to this because the full title of "Dog Demon Lord" doesn't sound as impressive as "Inu-taiyokai". Hurrah for inconsistency! **There is also, unfortunately, a division in theme in this story: the first 9 chapters are decidedly action-oriented, whereas the second half is where the romance takes precedence. I'm warning you people NOW because there's no sense in reading and being disappointed when the feel changes half-way through!** **

**Now, on with the show!**


	2. Fujin: The God of Eight Winds

**Iris.**

**Man, I published the first chapter on Saturday night, but since it was technically Sunday (it was like... 12:03am) I felt obligated to wait until Tuesday. Hope this chapter lives up to expectations!**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Fujin: God of Eight Winds

For humans and half-breeds, a journey to the gates of heaven would take too long and be far too treacherous to undertake alone, let alone on a whim. The simplest way of reaching the gates, as in, the way which required expending the least amount of unnecessary energy, was to escape out across the ocean to the east, with sapphire and emerald waters as far as even his eyes could see in every direction. It took longer, yes, but time was not something Sesshoumaru chose to concern himself with.

Jaken knew better than to speak or complain as they travelled, even when they passed through the bend in time which rendered several days' worth of hours into a single period of unbroken sunlight and wind. Sesshoumaru knew he had flown far enough when before him stood the deep blue of night, and behind him the stark light of day. Suspended in twilight, the Demon Lord looked skyward and began to rise, his fur shedding the salty water which had accumulated on it during his flight thus far.

Bakusaiga and Tenseiga were quiet at his side, the blades respectful of his silence as he propelled himself further up towards the sky's orange zenith. Layers of colour on both sides, all the pink, blue, and indigo of time was painted across his vision, impossibly saturated and strong enough to captivate and blind the senses. With a white flash of light, he arrived.

Hmm, and so, technically, did Jaken, but all Sesshoumaru needed to do was glance down over his shoulder to see the stunned imp fall, paralyzed, to the ground. The colour of the sky had been too much for the small demon, his staff still clung rigidly in one clawed green hand. The paralysis would wear off momentarily however, and the Demon Lord was in no particular hurry.

They had arrived in an upper realm of the spirit world, in a sprawling meadow which expanded far beyond the horizon in all directions. Small flowers of white, blue, and pink dotted the hills, and the air was sweet with their scent and that of the fresh clover and grass underfoot. The only break in the endless green and blue was a simple temple arch rising over the distant hills. Time and distance were both illusions in this world, but the demon waited just the same before starting towards the landmark.

"Oooh... my Lord Sesshoumaru, what a horrifying experience..." At Jaken's voice he began walking, ignoring the shriek his beak-mouthed servant made. He let his black boots crush whatever flowers were directly in his path, making no allowance for the grasses and herbs, and let the wind graze his neck without comment.

He heard the Wind God long before he saw him, stepping up to the plain white arch and stopping just in font of it as the whirling noise grew louder. Sesshoumaru knew he would have difficulty trying to pass through the heavenly gates, that it would be an ordeal, so chose to stand there and wait instead. Let Fujin come to him.

"My Lord?" Jaken squeaked his name from behind the Demon Lord's leg, but was ignored. A sliver of white energy flashed within the arch and a moment later the light of a rising sun came pouring through the opening. The celestial energy was enough to score the ground and burn the servant with its intensity before Jaken ducked back within Sesshoumaru's shadow.

"A Demon Lord, bearing no gifts, comes before the gods?" Curled ram horns and green skin were the first things to materialize from the light, thick white lips and bulging yellow eyes forming as the twelve-foot creature pulled its clumsy form out through the arch. Ape-like armed with knuckles dragging over the grass, it wore a black and white cuirass girded with a thick leopard skin, a long sack slung over its shoulders like an ornament, emblazoned with numerous symbols of the wind: all four cardinal directions, then the four lesser winds.

"The Wind God Fujin!" Jaken announced, his voice panicked and on the verge of descending into tears. Without looking Sesshoumaru was aware of his servant cowering down on all fours, the tiny demon searching his clothes furiously for some king of suitable offering.

_Tch_. He placed a hand on the white hilt of Bakusaiga, but did not move beyond that. The green deity in front of him noticed this and bellowed in outrage.

"How _dare_ you stand at the gates of heaven, armed and proud!" This was not Fujin, human legends were rarely close to the true image. Watching as the massive creature reached around and began to pull the wind-bag off its shoulders, Sesshoumaru knew that a blast from that sack would be enough to eject his demonic self from the spirit world.

"Bakusaiga." Saying the name was unnecessary, the sword had already read his intentions and was eager before its blade even met the light. Slashing from his position several feet away from the green behemoth, Bakusaiga's electric green energy arced out and slashed across the deity's body, a cry of outrage followed by fear and pain filling the air before the creature fell apart in a wet, foul-smelling heap. The grass and flowers immediately died where it landed, spreading a patch of dead earth around the corpse.

Jaken made some inane comment about the power of the sword, as if there was listening audience interested in hearing his chimes of support. The Demon Lord merely sheathed Bakusaiga again, then turned to the other presence who _was_ watching, but also ignoring the imp.

"I still want my gift." The form of the true Wind God was eerily similar to that of Hakudoshi: the white-haired spawn of Naraku. Almost the same age and stature of the dead incarnation, the major difference was how his flaxen hair was braided into several dozen lengths which all merged into one behind his neck. His green eyes were sharp and almost cruel in a way to reflect Hakudoshi's personality, teeth honed to very slight points across his smile. The god's white clothing was very simple though: a child-like tunic which went down to his knees, a simple black obi holding it shut with a small pouch hanging from the hip. Fujin's appearance indicated nothing of his true power or knowledge, it was intuition which revealed the truth, along with as minor shift in the wind coiling around the boy.

"B-But my Lord Sesshoumaru this is just a child!"

"Silence." Neither demon could sense power coming from the boy, and in this realm scent would not tell him anything beyond the avatar's apparent age and physical state. This meant that there was no way of knowing, for certain, who they were dealing with, but Sesshoumaru reached inside his armour anyways and withdrew a slim silk purse.

Tossing the gold pouch to the boy, the white-haired god snatched it out of the air and held it between his small palms. Rather than rip into it like a greedy child, the deity merely smiled and then parted his fingers again- the pouch was gone.

"I could look into your heart and know all that you desire, Demon Lord Sesshoumaru, but tell me instead." Fujin's eyes had been green a moment ago, now they were looking at him with a shade of gold similar to the Demon Lord's own. The god's eyes changed colour as easily as his winds changed direction, but the request was still a waste of time. "Omnipotence grows dull, demon. Speak, and let words cloud your meaning enough that there will still be something, later, to discover." The futility of language over the purity of intention... A strange request and one meant to waste time, but Sesshoumaru complied.

"What is the state of the spirit who follows me?" Jaken squeaked after he spoke the words, a confused sound. Of course the servant was too absent-minded to have noticed the nigh-constant presence of the wind. It was lessened now that Fujin was here though; he felt her lingering, but distant.

"Follow." With the word the blue-eyed god lifted up into the air, bare feet brushing over the flowers before he turned and went spiralling up into the blue sky. Sesshoumaru didn't hesitate, quickly jumping and sailing up after Fujin's youthful avatar- Jaken shrieked something and hopped around on the grass, but was promptly ignored and left behind when he failed to grab hold of the Demon Lord's fur.

The god moved very high very quickly, outpacing him easily into the clouds. When the god's scent disappeared it caused frustration to well up, but then Fujin came back into view against the blue sky, drifting lazily now like a feather riding a pleasant updraft. The boy's arms were spread and he was resting on his back, rising and falling languidly, a dazed smile on his face.

"She is asleep." He answered, too far away within the wind to be heard, but the breeze carried his voice straight to Sesshoumaru's ear. "Does this satisfy you?"

"No." So the god continued.

"When death occurs the soul requires rest before reincarnation can begin." Keeping his distance from the god's wild winds, Sesshoumaru stopped and noticed what, precisely, Fujin was doing. What looked like frivolous spirals and idle frolicking were actually movements of wind on a massive scale. Beyond the veil separating the spirit world from the moral realm, Sesshoumaru could feel the transformation of the god's power from one manifest form into another. He was sending a storm... somewhere. The corridors of wind over the seas were being tweaked and changed, altering their course across the oceans and continents of the world. Such amazing power... "Or reanimation."

"Reanimation?" This pulled him back to the present moment, away from the Wind God's dance. They were miles into the air now, clouds swirling far below when Sesshoumaru looked down towards the ground. He could see only snatches of the endless green through the grey clouds, even the scent of Jaken and the flowers had been lost.

"Gods and Demons are able to manifest themselves and do not _require_ gestation and birth, sometimes only a strong enough will and available power are necessary." He had heard of such things before, listening to Fujin now as the boy-god vanished behind the clouds and then reappeared again lazily. "If her soul chooses reincarnation she will require sleep for... perhaps a thousand years or so, maybe more, and must then grow from a child to a youth, to something capable of defending herself. Her rebirth will be random: human, demon, spirit, animal, tree... You cannot know." This was a long speech, but Sesshoumaru did not interrupt and paid attention to what was said.

It was no longer a conscious effort to remain within sight of Fujin however, he felt himself being drawn in to the edge of the god's web of winds, and now idled within the grips of the forming gale. Around him the wind sounded quiet and was only a constant presence, not violent or wild. Closer to the centre, around the god himself, clouds were being drawn together and darkening, his voice still unfazed by the noise or motions of the air.

"But she remains near you, so this means she may reanimate instead: come back to the physical world by her own choice and power, exactly as she was when she left it." Exactly as she was...

It formed slowly, his awareness of her. The wind was beginning to howl rather than hum, and he felt that physical hold on his sleeve, that warmth between his fingers. He blinked just once when he thought, maybe, he caught a trace of her scent: only without the blood and poison of Naraku. The vortex swirling around the god increased in strength, Sesshoumaru aware of the spiralling winds as he started moving himself back through the bands of air, trying now to maintain _distance_ from Fujin.

"Because she is the wind I know why she has bound herself to you, she whispers in her sleep." Whispers he heard, sometimes, although there was nothing for him to truly hear. "But I can sever the bond if that is why you have come. I can send her off on the ocean winds and let her span and travel the globe as she rests and prepares for a new life." A new life anywhere, as anything. A thousand years just to wake up as what? A bird? A human? An insect?

"No." He could..._ see her_. An outline, a distortion of the light. If he tried then he could consistently catch just the _memory_ of her scent on the spinning air. Her face was formless but buried against his right shoulder, like she had collapsed and fallen asleep against his fur. Save for that grip on his sleeve her form was listless, but without substance and therefore without weight. When his fingers closed around hers all he felt was a blast of cold air blowing against his palm. There was a space forming between where she was leaning and his chest: Fujin's maelstrom was trying to pull them apart.

But with Sesshoumaru's answer, the screaming air began to calm. He had begun to notice their position being swallowed in the same clouds at the storm's centre, but had failed to realize his left arm was around the ghostly spirit leaning on him; the wind both pulling and pushing against his arm as it was reacting against his hand. As Fujin pulled the winds apart and dispersed the storm, the god's thin blue eyes were watching with an open curiosity, a smug twist warping the avatar's thin lips.

"So you will wait for her?" He asked, the child's voice light and casual, bellying the power the youth had just displayed. "Reanimation requires only that the soul release the fear and anger of death, not the attachment to memory and life which is required for a new beginning. You would rather endure her slumber for one hundred years than let her go completely?" Fujin's arms were folded, legs crossed as he spoke, merely sitting atop a swirling eddy as the sky began to clear and the green fields below came back into view.

"...If you had looked into my mind in the beginning, none of this would have been necessary." The flight and the display, the attempt to break the so-called bond...

"Not true." The child let his smile grow until it was mocking, the Demon Lord narrowing his eyes and holding in a contemptuous growl. "I have seen that you are capable of compassion, therefore what need have I for mere convictions and belief?" The god neither pointed nor looked at the arm holding the spirit, but Sesshoumaru did not let go either. He would not feign shame nor imply that he had moved without being aware: not before his subordinates, never before a god.

"Well then!" Fujin spoke up, quickly sitting straight and clapping his hands together twice. The Demon Lord sucked in a sharp breath as he felt his control over the air holding him up suddenly vanish. Without a word, pressure from above began driving him down, his body hurtling through the miles of cloud and air separating him from the ground. Fujin's voice followed close behind as his awareness and the sensation of Kagura vanished- only a familiar resonance in the air telling him that the spirit was still there.

"_Next time, Dog General, do not kill my pet or I will take yours as compensation."_

He was falling, but without the spirit in his arms he did not let himself remain powerless as he was forced down- quickly spinning his body around so he was facing the ground now, diving straight with a hand on Tenseiga.

"_And know that her spirit will require nothing of you beyond your continued health and longevity. When her mind and soul are prepared to live again, it will be so."_

He could hear Jaken screaming long before he actually reached his servant's location, the imp leaping about and swinging his staff frantically as he watched the Demon Lord plummet. Sesshoumaru knew he wouldn't stop when he hit the ground, angling himself properly so that when he drew the Tenseiga it slashed through the spiritual nature of the world around it. Jaken was pulled, screaming, into the rift next to him and grabbed onto the fur trailing behind the Demon Lord. Sesshoumaru had to wait until they passed completely into the living realm before his power of flight returned.

Seven days from the nearest land, now chasing the setting sun to the west. He had hardly begun his return when a final string of words reached him from that other world.

"_When she awakens, General, bring the wind demon to me. She will be my creature then, not Naraku's..."_

_Tch._ No.

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><p><strong>Yaaaay for random encounters with gods. I dunno, I watched too much of the anime and this chapter really felt a lot like how an episode would go. Actually, a lot of this story should hopefully mimic the feel of the original media. Their world is pretty wild and steeped in mythos, so I'm more concerned with keeping my main character canonical than giving oodles of background about what makes Sesshoumaru think he can go chat up the gods. Tell me if the effect works?<strong>

**And if anyone can give me a definitive answer on when to capitalize different pronouns, I'd love to hear from you. I'm trying to capitalize titles like Wind God and Demon Lord, but not pronouns like god and demon, does that sound right?**

**Leave a review below!**


	3. Kamikaze

**This story's called Restoring the Wind, right? Well, lets get to the point and figure out what's _really_ wrong with it:**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Kamikaze

It was a kamikaze, a wind sent by gods, that tore across the land from the ocean all the way until it reached and ravished the Western Lands. It was now five years after the death of Naraku, and Sesshoumaru would not have thought of him if not for one thing: after the storm, she was gone.

The wind had come with little rain and only a few waves along the eastern coast, everywhere else it was just a fierce roar that lasted for several days and tore several sections of roof off his palace. Human crops were obliterated mid-season, and when he travelled to check on Rin he found most of Inuyasha's village had either been blown away or collapsed from the storm's fury. The half-breed's child had survived along with its priestess mother, and their friends the monk and the exterminator had been unharmed with their four children. Rin, now thirteen, had asked him if it was a demon, and he had told her no.

It wasn't until after the damage had been surmised, after Jaken was charged with overseeing the recovery of his estate, and Rin's safety and well-being were assured, that he finally realized she was no longer there.

He waited. He would walk with the wind and then stop, either hand open with palms facing the wind's origin, anticipating that warmth, but would not feel it. When surveying his territory he would fly into gusts and ribbons of air which would only slow him down, but there was no touch which would not be accounted for. He lingered near blooming meadows and never saw a red petal, and he visited the sea side and watched for feathers which never rose to greet him. He slept in silence and woke up alone.

She was _gone_.

"_Insolent demon! How dare you return to-"_

"Bakusaiga!"

The same demon stepped through the arch this time, though Sesshoumaru had not taken a week to fly out to the centre of the ocean to reach this place again. No, he had waited too many months for her to return, too long expecting and, of all things, _hoping_ that Kagura would come back. But she was not alive: the sorceress had been in love with him, even a child like Rin had known it. She had been in love with him and then she had bound her soul to him for _five years_ after she died: if she had come back to life, she would have come to him.

"I do not have time for you now, Dog General." When the Avatar of Fujin appeared it, again, chose the body of a pale child too much like Hakudoshi. The difference now was the state of the child's clothing, and the gaping wounds which had carved their way across the god's face, arm, and torso all down its left side. The wounds were not bleeding, but they were raw and open in the celestial air.

"Her spirit is gone."

"_I know that._"

"What have you done?"

"Tch! Nothing which gives you authority to make demands of me." The god's eyes went red as he stood there, bare feet not touching the ground as the winds of paradise spiralled around his youthful form. The gate behind him was still radiating celestial light, the glare behaving like a barrier which warned him from coming too close. When Fujin spoke there was authority and power saturating each word, the many voices of a truly powerful entity speaking through a single mouth.

"_Turn your blade against me, Sesshoumaru, and I will not kill you: you will cease to exist. These wounds were caused by a force far greater than your puny demonic self. I am the Wind God Fujin, I was there when the earth was born and I will remain long after it is gone."_

The challenge sent every instinct screaming, demanding proud vengeance for such a lofty boast. But Sesshoumaru, struggling, remained perfectly still, his gold eyes still trained on the mock Hakudoshi. He could feel the red bleeding across his vision and willed it down.

"Where is she?" Spirits had no scent, he could not track her. Where had the wind taken her? But the god did not answer him, merely watched him with crimson eyes as Sesshoumaru felt the markings on his cheeks grow jagged without his control. No, he would not struggle against this: let the god know how much anger was in him.

"You are powerful for a mortal." That was not his question. "If you seal Eurus, then I will tell you where the spirit is." Eurus? Some demon? "A demi-god, the guardian of the Eastern Wind. As a mortal would understand it, he is... my cousin."

"So I am to obey orders given by you?" Insolent and degrading, he had not come all this way just to-

"If I must waste time with a demon then it will be worth something. Whether I tell you now or later makes no difference in the end: either way you must seal Eurus."

"And if I slay him instead?" A demi-god, a cousin to Fujin, a way to make up for the slights at the true god's hands... It wouldn't satisfy his pride, but it would assuage his anger.

"Be my guest, demon." Was the dismissive answer. "But first, draw the Tenseiga." Fujin was still hovering there, surrounded by his winds, but the red light in his eyes had changed into a white glow very similar to the still irritated gateway behind him. The light was becoming taxing to stand in, but not yet painful or draining on his spirit.

He had not brought Jaken with him this time, so there was no shrieking or screams as the Demon Lord drew the Tenseiga and held the healing blade out towards his right. It was Bakusaiga who wanted to taste freedom, to feed off his anger and strike the wounded deity in front of him. But it was Bakusaiga who had to wait, and, like his anger, be contented with the notion of fighting whoever this '_Eurus' _was.

Fujin moved like a child holding something small in his hand, still hovering there over the trampled clover and grass. He twisted around in the air, then whipped whatever he was holding at the exposed sword. A swirling burst of wind propelled the projectile through the air, and while his first instinct was to turn away from the encroaching blast of energy, the Demon Lord held his ground.

It was a small orb of light which disintegrated before it could physically strike the Tenseiga's blade, but he still felt the sword react as the energy penetrated the old fang. The resonance of wind and steel fired up his arm and penetrated deep into his body, searching out the various points of energy and power within him. When the thrumming sensation went away, the Tenseiga looked and felt no different, but there was... something...

"Tenseiga will sever Eurus' celestial life-force, his immortality: that is how you will seal him. Whether you slay him afterwards or leave him as a human is not my concern, but he is responsible for launching the Kamikaze, so he is the one who must be punished first." _First_... hmph.

"And once I have accomplished this task?"

"I will tell you what you need to know about your spirit friend, and will not hinder your involvement in what is to come." So this was a test of his power... very well.

He would pass.

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><p><strong>Movin' along, movin' along!<strong>

**Jeeze, with the stuff I'm working on right now the chapters of this story feel _so short_... They do get longer though. See you Saturday!**


	4. The Fallen God, Eurus

**Room of Angels. I Need a Doctor.**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

The Fallen God, Eurus

"_Return to the realm between time, the place from which you passed into this world first. Once there, turn to the south until you reach an island surrounded by whirlpools and stone pillars. That is Eurus' dwelling place."_

Fujin had allowed him to exit the spirit world within the boundaries of the between-time; that eerie station frozen between day and night far out over the ocean. Despite this _charity,_ it was still several days flying before an island came into view. It was time to think, but thinking only served to fuel his temper and strengthen his convictions. If Eurus was responsible for the Kamikaze, then he was at fault for her disappearance.

Fighting a god did not worry him, especially not a demi-god, but he was careful in his approach anyways. He did not hide, but once he could see the stone pillars mentioned by Fujin, and the whirlpools which protected it for several miles in any direction, he slowed and lowered himself closer to the ocean's choppy surface.

He did not know the name of this island, Fujin had not told him and he had not heard of it before now. Pale yellow stone made up the numerous fluted pillars rising up from the ocean's depths, and cascading waterfalls poured down from the sheer cliffs which made up the island. There was only wind, water and stone here, not a breath of anything green or living- the entire mass was just a wind-swept block of pale stone and ribbed textures across every available surface.

Seated atop the rough mound of the island was a great earthen structure vaguely shaped like a bowl, or vase. There were waterfalls all along the rim from springs and sources Sesshoumaru could not determine, and they fed the rest of the water-ways and canals across the island leading into the ocean. No water fell within the bowl, merely outside, and as he circled the island once more he determined that the only thing within the bowl was, very likely, his intended prey.

A whirlwind was spinning in the centre of the island, a courtyard-sized space of flat bare rock within the sloping sides of the bowl. The wind had sucked up dust from the ground, holding it close inside as the cyclone refused to move from its position, spinning tightly like a child's top. Dropping down from his hovering position, Sesshoumaru allowed himself to clear the water before falling at a smooth angle to reach the flat ground. When the cyclone didn't respond to his arrival, he began to walk, calmly, closer.

"No- NO- _NO!_" And then he stopped, watching as the wind tore itself apart, revealing a human-like being. His skin colour was hidden under the layers of pale yellow dust, but his clothing was strange, much different from anything the Demon Lord had seen before. It was just one long piece of cloth that had been wrapped around his torso multiple times, then tossed over one arm and pinned in place. The entire outfit was wrinkled and looped, not a single pane smooth, and no pattern or colour woven into the filthy cloth. A thin belt of woven... leather? was tied around his waist, giving the garment a bit of shape, and from the belt hung a long rod of white wood, blackened at one end.

The robe came down to the man's knees, and from that point down there were long leather straps doubled back and forth around his calves to hold on the slim sandals he wore. They looked like they had, at one point, been painted with gold, but the finery was wearing off now; crumbling away.

What looked like the branches of some sort of tree or bush were twined around the demi-god's head, but their oval leaves had fallen off, only a few brown ones clinging to their stems. Even as Sesshoumaru watched there were thorns growing all along the wreath, the demi-god reaching around and clawing at his strange hair as it was stained with a gold substance- probably his blood. Aside from that gold substance and the thickly layered dust, the tight curls, short, had no discernible colour.

"No! Boreas you lied to me!" The cry was not directed at the demon, but he watched as the demi-god continued to fret over something. His hands kept rising to his hair and then down in fists, then back up again as he screamed at someone who was not there. This deity smelt like ashes and hot air, and by simply standing here Sesshoumaru could feel the increased heat within the bowl compared to the cold ocean outside. There was no other scent here though, no spiritual signature or other clear presence, just the two of them.

_'It's draining, something is leaving him...' _This demi-god... his power was considerable but erratic, unfocused, and the longer Sesshoumaru stood here the more he could feel the levels fluctuating, becoming steadily less with time...

Well, enough waiting.

"Who are you! ?" Ah, so he was finally noticed. With a hand on Tenseiga Sesshoumaru merely watched the frantic display in front of him, the demi-god's eyes held tears now, and fear was coming off of him, thick and rank. "Who sent you! ? No! Don't come any closer!"

"_Tch_." With his left hand resting on the Tenseiga's sheath, he stepped forward with his right and slid the blade out with a strong and delicate pull- but fast, so much so that the blade sung as it parted the air and reached for its intended victim.

There was a scream, but before he even finished following through with the strike the demon knew the blade had not landed on its mark. His prey had taken to the air and come down several yards back across the dry ground. Irritating. This demi-god was not a threat, but he was fast.

"Fujin! Fujin sent you, didn't he! ? Because I took his servants and his friends and his children away he-"

"_Silence._" There was a small zephyr following Tenseiga as he moved it around for another strike, lightly pushing himself through the air to close the distance between himself and the screaming deity. That wind must have been Fujin's gift: the power which would sever the immortal's life energy. It would slice through the immortal centre like a demonic point: the power of the Dragon-Scaled Tesseiga... How long would this power last after Eurus was dead?

"_I don't deserve this!_" A blast of wind shot Eurus straight up into the air, his sandalled feet flashing out behind him and carrying the rest of his body along. The air, Sesshoumaru noted, was hot where it gushed from the soles of the deity's feet, and by the time the Demon Lord looked up-

Damn.

A plume of white fire was coming down for his head. He brought his free hand up, wreathed in green poison, and slashed through the fire with his claws before leaping up towards the deity again. He reached the highest point of the jump and found himself hovering just above Eurus, Tenseiga following his gaze as it slashed down towards the deity's stark blue eyes.

"_I am a god of Olympus! I am a god! I am a god! I am a-"_

"_Silence!"_ He missed again, but followed through with a second and then a third slash, the god with the flaming torch in his hand just backing further and further away through the air. Once Eurus finished screaming he seemed to remember his power, causing the Demon Lord to pull back and pivot to his left, evading a blast of hot air which singed a portion of his fur as it surged by. A green lash of poison left his fingertips and arced through the air, and the god screamed as it slashed the hand holding that offensive flame.

But then, somehow, Eurus was so overcome with the pain in his hand that he didn't move before Tenseiga lodged itself between his ribs, piercing that immortal heart.

"No... No, I..." This was a god? A sting on his hand and he ceased to pay attention? It was insulting that _this_ needed to be his test for Fujin. Clearly the Wind God was mocking him, he could easily have come up with a greater challenge.

"Olympus must be a very weak place..." They settled on the ground before Sesshoumaru spoke, the demi-god's powers shifting and fluctuating no better now than they had before, but he seemed stunned, incapable of speech or doing anything more than floating down to the stone ground with Tenseiga still rammed through his body.

Placing one booted foot on the kneeling deity's chest, he wrenched the blade free where it left no mark on the celestial flesh, the only visible tear being the one in the enchanted cloth covering the former god's heart.

Now Sesshoumaru could see the true effect, the shimmering gold light that was rippling back and forth over Eurus' body. It was darkening, oozing out of the closed wound like yellow blood. His light, his immortal aura, vanishing as the source was severed and left him kneeling there looking lost. The only question which crossed Sesshoumaru's mind was whether or not it was even worth the effort to sully Bakusaiga or his claws with this filth.

"A thousand years, demon, that's how long I've lived without veneration." Hm? And what brought this on? "Even under the eagle my disciples still knew me, they simply called me Vulturnus instead, but it was still me. They still loved _me_..." The mortal's voice was weak, faint, warbling back and forth around threatening tears and unrealized sobs.

"So you were reliant on human affection." And when he fell from their favour, he became this. Pathetic. A god who required human worship, cut down by a Demon Lord, but defeated with less effort or strain than that required to slay others of his calibre. Even his Half-breed brother was a more worthy opponent...

"I needed it as much you need human fear..." Those were bold words from a defeated foe, but there would be no satisfaction in destroying such a hapless face with his claws. He needed _nothing_ from humans. "Gods are everything humans imagine us to be... and demons are everything they fear. Unlucky Eurus, warm eastern wind... Betrayed by Boreas and forsaken by Fujin..."

"Boreas..." He would learn of that from Fujin, when he returned. He was finished here, and turned to leave.

"Wait..!"

He stopped, turning his head just enough to see the edge of the pathetic mortal's body. He was still on his knees, nursing his wounded hand.

"Take this." A clatter of wood on dry stone, and Sesshoumaru looked down to see the white rod Eurus had attacked him with. There were several dozen gold rings set into the pale wood, worn so deeply in place that there was no describable change from rod to metal. It was bent from so much heavy use, curved to suit a palm the size of Eurus', and sang with a celestial power. "Boreas would... _despise_ having it used against him."

Hmph. His fight was not with this _'Boreas'. _He turned to walk away again, but this time Bakusaiga halted him. This was new; his sword rarely spoke up like his father's cast off was so wont to do. Very well: he would trust this extension of himself.

"You will die here, human." He knelt and picked the rod up off the ground, uncertain what effect his poisons would have on it if he tried using them to hold and lift it for him. The sun-bleached wood caused a tingle in his fingers and palm, stinging him with celestial energy.

"I know." Such a weak, simpering voice he used, had he given in to the tears yet? Yes, Sesshoumaru could smell them. "Tell Fujin... someday he will know this fear too." Tch.

"I do not give messages."

He then took to the amber skies and left.

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><p>"<strong>Eurus was the Greek deity representing the unlucky east wind. He was thought to bring warmth and rain, and his symbol was an inverted vase, spilling water." - Wiki!<strong>

**I couldn't find the right music for a rockin' battle, so we get this lame little fight that has Sesshoumaru going "WTF" instead. XD I have lots of battle music, just none that fit with this character.**

**IMPORTANT: My Sunday update will be happening as planned, however my Tuesday update might be a bit wonky as I will be spending the 9th and 10th in transit from Vancouver to Beirut. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to make updates at ALL over the next three weeks since it purely depends on whether a N. American Laptop is compatible with Mid-east networks, and more importantly I'm not sure if my 76 year old grandmother even HAS internet. I've got chapters uploaded to FF just in case I DO get on a computer, but it's all up in the air as of right now. Bear with me, guys, and see you tomorrow!**


	5. Fujin's Champion

****PLEASE check my profile for update information! Posted frickin' early because my proper Sunday won't have time for edits and postage.****

**Room of Angels, Iris, Everything You Want.**

**Not gonna lie, major inspiration for the events in this fic (as in, beyond the first chapter and the wind-connection thing) is a story I read... oh, years and years and years ago, where Sesshoumaru fell in love with a Greek goddess and there was all this stuff about Hera and going to Hawaii to visit the gods there and, wow, it was just amazing. ****I don't remember if it was ever published on FF or not, or if it was taken down, but I'd kill to read it again, not to mention a couple other fics that I read on a fansite like... 7 years ago xD**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Fujin's Champion

"Don't kill him this time!" Removing his hand from Bakusaiga's hilt as Fujin's child-like voice shouted at him from beyond the arch, Sesshoumaru straightened up as the god appeared from out behind his restored servant and guard. The green ape-like guardian growled threateningly, and Sesshoumaru crushed the curiosity which asked him to withdraw Eurus's rod and see if it would incinerate the creature for him.

"You completed your end of things, very well. I've made progress while you've been gone." Fujin's wounds had closed in only the few days Sesshoumaru had been flying to the demi-god's island. His eye had repaired itself, and the gashes across his arm and torso were no longer gaping and raw in the open air. To go along with his mended appearance the god also had a renewed sense of purpose and authority as he spoke. And yet he maintained that child-like disguise... "What did Eurus say? I doubt he would lie, but there's no satisfaction about you."

"I would not take satisfaction from such a pathetic kill." And it had been _truly_ pathetic.

"Hah! That is Eurus, he was never a warrior: he lacked courage." And plenty more beyond that, but the Demon Lord merely held his piece, not allowing his face to change as his gold eyes watched the boy-god walk away from him across the floral hills. Fujin didn't wander far however, quickly turning and scraping his bare heel across the grass and peeling it away with a blade of wind. Clouds quickly gushed up from the tear the god had formed, and Sesshoumaru followed so he could see what was being conjured. He didn't lean forward or come to stand too close, but he felt his senses being drawn in regardless. His vision was filled with light and swirling energies.

"_Eurus_ was venerated in the world west of here. Far, far west." Familiar territory formed itself within the clouds, his territory, before Sesshoumaru felt his senses being pulled high over the rivers and vales of his land and out across the western sea. Land swiftly filled his gaze again, marshes and rivers followed by stepped plateau, desert, and mountains impossibly tall and cold. Still going, more desolate plains and nomadic humans, the realm of demons and deities like those only found in the most remote reaches of the islands.

More land-locked seas, and then finally Fujin stopped and showed him an area of the world Sesshoumaru had never seen before: a massive sea dotted incessantly with islands, thousands of them, perhaps millions.

"The realm of Olympus... This is the former seat of Eurus and Boreas, the East and North winds." Former seat...

"Eurus mentioned an eagle." The name was uncomfortable on this tongue, with that s, but Sesshoumaru made the comment and watched Fujin shrug his shoulders at him, an absent-minded gesture unfit for a god.

"The eagle is a human symbol, an empire which fell many centuries ago." Fujin shook his braided head in disdain, Sesshoumaru not looking up from the changing world below him. "The Olympic gods grew fat and weak on the love given them by their cults and idols, even the most minor persona had numerous temples and dedications. When the human emperor forbade this worship, only the largest cults remained in secret, the others perished either by force or through a loss of belief." Such behaviour from gods... How disgusting...

"What did the Kamekazi accomplish?"

"I'm getting to that, you have no patience." That tone... He did not like being reprimanded like a child _by_ a child. Narrowing his yellow eyes closely on the white boy, Fujin's eyes were a deep violet colour and watched him with equal impatience. Then he continued. "Eurus would have lost his immortality anyways, that is why he unleashed the storm. The minor gods have lost the ability to sustain themselves, and now that their cults are several hundred years dead, they are becoming mortal to preserve their lives rather than their powers." _Stalling._

"Zephrus and Notus are the other two wind gods of Olympus. _I_ am a god with dominion over all four winds equally, and the half-winds. But they are, or were, powerful within their own right." Here Fujin began to grin terribly, his expression pulling at the still-present wound on his face. "The south and west winds attacked me during the Kamikaze, allowing the east wind to unleash itself over the world. Notus died during the storm, and while you hunted down Eurus I caught up with that weak fool Zephrus." And that left only the north. But this was still not-

"Ah! You should care more for the _reasons_ why things happen, demon! Boreas has always been the strongest of the four, the most noteworthy, and he is the one gathering the spirits of wind to him." Spirits of wind... Had a single storm travelled across the entire world then? All the way from their islands to this land of Olympus?

_"Fujin! Fujin sent you, didn't he! Because I took his servants and his friends and his children away he-"_ At least Fujin's foul temper made sense now, but the rest of his story had not been necessary. The Kamekazi had gathered up all of his spiritual disciples and companions, his property; Sesshoumaru had not needed to know about those dead cults to understand this.

"Why Kagura?" He asked, getting to the point and speaking her name in the presence of another for the first time in years. "She was not an active spirit." She was asleep. Fujin's response to the question was lack-lustre though, the god looking at him and folding his thin white arms loosely over his chest, letting his gold gaze drift back down to the map with a dispassionate look.

"Boreas will either consume the spirits he has swept away in order to support himself, or he will enslave them as worshippers." Sesshoumaru... did not _like_ those implications. That his companion had either been enslaved by a failing god, or that she would be devoured by him were both intolerable. Either option made him sick with hate. "You brought Eurus' torch. This will allow you, if you wish, to journey to Olympus much faster than if you chose to fly there yourself." Olympus... "But no, you will want to go to Thrace instead, here."

The cloud map regained his attention and Sesshoumaru watched the god's small hand touch a mountain chain, moving deftly through the thousands of tiny spines until he located the correct one: a snow-capped rise with four separate peaks extending out of the sheer rock. The winds running through the region all coalesced in this one spot, swirling in unpredictable ways.

"Having you punish Eurus saves me the trouble of doing it myself, demon, so even if you abandon this effort now I am satisfied with having tolerated you. If you choose to continue, that torch will be your fastest means of reaching Boreas' location." So that was what Fujin had meant by the order of explanation and hunt being irrelevant. Sesshoumaru did not know how long it would take him to fly across the entire world under his own power, and despite the ease of it he _had_ technically won the torch from the demi-god...

Fujin was waiting for him to say something, perhaps to either pledge himself to this journey or to abandon it as the god accused. Such a persistent need for gesture.

"Continue." Sesshoumaru was not going to grandstand and boast, or make great pledges to appease a celestial appetite for drama. That was the Half-breed's preference, the Demon Lord understood restriction and control. He _would_ restore Kagura to his side, that was the principle at stake.

"I will free my servants and my children, Dog General." The god vowed, his eyes glowing again and changing colour rapidly, as if they couldn't settle on a single hue. Fujin turned his multi-coloured gaze away from him and looked down at the map again. "But the spirit you seek will be a meal worthy of the north wind once she arrives. I have delayed the Kamikaze's progress across the world, but as we speak it has reached the sea north of Thrace- the Black Sea." So many months to travel so far, but it was true then: the Kamekazi had not simply blown itself out once it reached the shore across the western sea... "I will give you one day to make preparations with your servants and estates before you depart. Otherwise, you must travel with the rod now to Thrace and delay his feast." _Delay?_

"And if I slay him?"

"_Eurus was weak!_" The god snapped, his voice suddenly carrying the roar of a violent wind before it calmed again to a child's irritating tenor. "I sent you to punish him and take the torch. I did not expect Eurus to fight you- and he didn't! Boreas will not run away, and the Tenseiga will not have the power to destroy his immortal life." That juvenile form could not command his respect, but perhaps even if Fujin _had_ presented himself as something more_; _an old man, a grand dragon, a full maelstrom- it would still not be enough. That this god should judge his capabilities merely on account of their places on destiny's wheel- _tch._

"Fine." But Fujin seemed as tired of talk as the Demon Lord, speaking up again without waiting for him to make a reply. "Throw your life away if it pleases you, demon. You are mortal, you understand death and what it means to die. But you are no martyr: I give you the opportunity to fulfill the duty you accepted two years ago when you came to me, but I do not charge you with facing the North Wind. When my wounds have healed _I_ will destroy him, I am sending you merely to collect the spirit you lost and others like her." And _what?_

"The others." He refused to intone a question, merely repeated the words and let Fujin settle it himself. The god heard his contempt and his expression darkened, Fujin's thin arms unfolding so he could place his hands on his narrow hips like a spurned woman.

"All I have to do is open the Gates of Heaven and call upon a champion to go and liberate those in danger of being consumed by Boreas. If you go then you go to save _all_ the hapless spirits of the wind, not just your precious _Kagura._" Here Fujin stopped, and began to smile again, splitting the ugly wound marring his face once more. Sesshoumaru bristled at the insulting tone, but not as much as he was about to:

"Or should I summon your brother instead, a _truly_ compassionate heart?" He felt- he didn't know how to keep his anger inside, how to hide it without visibly struggling to do so. The Demon Lord felt his eyebrows rise just a hair, knew the marks on his cheeks went jagged under his eyes, the ones around his wrists burning under his sleeves. Bakusaiga hummed pleasurably at his side- both mocking and revelling in his temper that was so easily roused by mention of the Half-breed.

"Then you will do it, good."

With a sharp gesture the pillar of clouds vanished, the energy transforming back into the thickly woven grass and clover of the celestial field. The god's wounds looked pronounced once again, not necessarily any worse than before, but there was a redness scarring his face that had not been there earlier. Fujin was waiting for him to speak, but he felt no words forming just yet, taking a moment more to calm.

Reaching for Eurus' torch, the Demon Lord stiffly removed the white and gold rod and held it firmly in his left hand, glancing first at the weapon and then back at the goading avatar.

"How long must I wait for you?" Because he would not be idle for long. Fujin's pale face merely remained in that terrible smile, and the child extended one hand out towards the rod.

"Let me show you how to use that..."

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><p><strong>Just to clarify and build off what Fujin said in this chapter, Sesshou is NOT going to ancient Greece! Feudal Japan is "five hundred years ago" in Inuyasha, the classical era was between fifteen hundred and TWO THOUSAND years ago! This is not logic-fail Disney putting Hercules and Aladdin side by side!<strong>

**Otherwise, if you're confused by anything in this chapter please please _please_ say so in your reviews so I can edit/repost once my update schedule is cleared up!**

**Thank you and keep reading! See you in June?**


	6. Divine Emissaries

**Iris.**

**It's a Wednesday but whatever. Definitely not going to be making consistent updates throughout May, but since I CAN use my cousin's computer (at least for today!) I'll try and make updates when possible.**

**Please forgive any spelling errors/rough spots, I tried proofing this before posting but I had a really wild trip flying to the other side of the world, and was a bit pressed for time when at my uncle's. xD  
><strong>

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Divine Emissaries

He had been warned before using the wing god's torch. Fujin had taken pleasure in telling him that the fire would not hesitate to burn him as he was torn over mountains and across deserts. Eurus had been a herald of the daylight, hence his torch and the heat of his winds. But the torch was the fastest way to move west, and Fujin had also warned him that the return east would take much longer.

The god would require '_a few more days'_ to recover, a vague and uncertain estimation which Sesshoumaru had not appreciated as he set out. There had been time to return and speak to Jaken, or to visit briefly with Rin, but he had taken neither opportunity. It was best that he leave as soon as possible, and not concern himself with the opinions of others. He would not take either of them with him, so there was no point in going so far out of his way.

He flew wreathed in golden fire, moving much faster than he had ever anticipated as the torch seared his skin and charred his left sleeve. Sesshoumaru held on with that hand on purpose, he knew how to fight without the left. Plains and forests and deserts, mountains and rivers and seas. He traversed the entire world in only a day, and he arrived at his destination during the few calm hours before the Kamikaze struck...

It was a storm so huge, so powerful with its celestial origins and divine instruction, that it had wrought havoc from the eastern ocean all the way to the western coast of the land Fujin had called _Thrace_. Wind spirits, demons and lesser deities had been scraped up by the storm's fierce power and dragged thousands of miles from home and origin. They had been brought to a place where the spoken language could not be interpreted, the manner of dress was strange and bizarre, and the deities were something to be despised rather than emulated.

He had known, but not quite understood, what Fujin had meant by the warning over language and culture. Sesshoumaru had communicated with Eurus just fine, but that had been due to the demi-god's celestial origins: language was no barrier to the divine. When the demon landed in an explosion of gold fire and intense heat he knew things would be different, but had other concerns to deal with before worrying himself over communication.

Sesshoumaru came down aiming for the centre of a blue lake, allowing the water to hiss and bubble against his burning skin and armour. The fires were extinguished and with them went the intense light of the flames, the demon sinking all the way to the stony bottom before he began to notice the effects of the water. Once he reached the depths of the lake he merely stayed there, only opening his eyes once he felt, perhaps, the coldness of the water making its presence known against his scorched face. His wounded left arm was clumsy and raw as it slipped the hateful torch into his sash and let it continue to boil the water around him. Beads of steam clung to his armour as he waited for it to cool, kneeling down on the smooth rocks and looked up through the blue water towards the evening sky. Through the veil and distortion of the lake, he could see that the moon overhead was nearly full, but not quite there.

Was Fujin was waiting for the moon? Maybe that was it...

He remained down until he felt his skin begin to heal, using his own power to stave off the need for air as he patiently waited. Only once he deemed himself presentable, save for his scorched left sleeve, Sesshoumaru stood on the lake-bed and pushed up so he could rise smoothly and breach the surface. Continuing up, he stopped only once he could concentrate down and stand on the rippling top of the water, allowing his fur to mend itself after the persistent redness in his skin was dealt with.

_'What a horrendous way to travel...'_

This world was very different for his senses. The stars were a mystery to his eyes, meaning for tonight at least he would be quite lost in terms of direction. The plants and scents were a mystery, blurring together and, for the most part, foul. The sounds were different as well: this mountainous land was quiet, awaiting the arrival of the storm barreling in from the east.

Well, not completely quiet. He heard something- a giggle? come from the water beneath him. Glancing down he didn't move as the water began to quickly churn and spin, rotating around him but without effecting him in any way. A single band of water picked itself out of the current and spiraled up around him, but still maintained a foot or so of distance on each side- not enough for his taste, but not close enough for him to instantly attack.

The stream slowly began to take on a distinctly feminine form, a sprite then? It didn't have the same aura as a demon, still natural but lacking... something... Lacking power. Her form was semi-transparent in the moonlight, a clearly formed head and features he expected would be pleasing if more defined. Frothing water resembling hair cascaded down narrow shoulders and covered a full, bare chest. At her waist the spirit was merely churning water, joined to the lake and continuing to twist and spiral even as her body stopped moving and hung in front of him, leaning forward.

He waited for it to speak, and then found himself mildly disappointed when the sounds she made were nothing but nonsense to his ears. The language was incomprehensible, but her tone told him she said nothing of value anyways: all sighs and fawning, mere simpering inflections. Her hands gestured to his armour and swords, but when she moved towards his exposed left arm he sent her a warning: his claws extended and he let a cloud of noxious poison form around his fingers, the gas crawling up his arm as he let a few drops of the toxic liquid drip into her pristine lake. The spirit shrieked and moved to strike him instead, her blow countered with the claws of his right hand as they ripped through her liquid torso and scattered the water.

_Tch_. He did not have time for this.

Rising up into the air, he flew not to escape the thrashing spirit but to gain a proper vantage point of this strange land. Fujin had showed him a multi-peaked mountain capped with snow, but above a certain height there were several he could already see which had winter's hand clinging to their tops. None of them immediately resembled the size and form of the one he had seen however, and there was nothing in the air to guide him.

_'Why do I not sense anything?'_ A god on earth should have been something which stuck out against the landscape. But as his gold eyes circled the lands that he could see, nothing struck him- nothing but the encroaching blackness of the Kamikaze. At least he had managed to find east.

The storm was a great black front of wind that had gathered up every cloud in its wake and refused to let them go. Unlike most other storms bred from the seas, this one refused to acknowledge the mountains standing futile in its path, merely consuming them whole and ripping branches off trees- or the trees themselves from the ground.

"_Eurus!"_ ...? "Hey, Eurus! Why the new get-up?" Turning slowly towards the sound of the voice, it was young without being juvenile, the sound of a male approaching on the wind. "You've got some explaining to do, you- oh..." Had he just been mistaken for a pathetic demi-god? Yes, Sesshoumaru thought he had.

"You are a god in this land?" Not deigning to turn completely and give the deity his full attention or any inclination of respect, he did at least take in what he could of the strange figure.

Like Eurus before him, this man wore the same wrap around his torso and thighs, with the end piece looped over his shoulder and the entire thing cinched with a leather belt. _Unlike_ the disgraceful one, this god wore a fine cloth with fibres so delicate and well-woven that the garment seemed to sparkle and shine in the moonlight. The same calf-hugging leather straps, these ones appropriately painted with gold and studded with fine silver, led down to sandals, where a pair of wings had grown from both of the ankles. Interesting.

On his head atop a mound of tight, yellow curls, the god wore a silver helmet with another pair of wings protruding from the sides. What was the point of such a thing? It had no protection for the front or sides of the deity's face, it almost made Sesshoumaru's claws itch with the will to rip the god's cheeks out with a single swipe. Was this Boreas? Somehow, he felt it was not. The god had sounded irritated when he called Eurus' name, not superior or commanding.

"Ah, you're Titan-spawn, aren't you?" The god inquired, sounding curious as the wings at his ankles gave a stiff beat and helped keep him a float. The Demon Lord did not know the reference, but- was that truly how this being flew? By wearing special foot-gear? "And from the east, _very far east..._" Tch. "I am Hermes, Emissary of Olympus, what shall I call you?" Hermes... such a strange name.

"I am not here for pleasantries, Emissary." Pulling his eyes away from the hovering god, he looked back towards the encroaching storm. "Where is Boreas?" The god laughed at him, but it was a snide sound, brief and bitter.

"Maybe I'll tell you- _if_ you tell me what happened to the East Wind first. You have his torch, that's why I thought-"

"Eurus is mortal. He was left to die on his island." A brief curse floated through the air to him, but the Demon Lord didn't understand it exactly- the phrase meant nothing to him, it was only the way it was said that told him it was a cuss of some sort.

"So this storm wasn't his doing then? What is it? It came from the east so you must know!"

"Is this a god asking a demon how the heavens work?" He could feel his temper rising, but there was a sense of smug satisfaction in the question when he asked it. _These_ were gods? They had become so coddled by human love that they were less than kappa and koi. Jaken was a more potent source of wisdom than either of the Olympians he had met thus far.

"Watch yourself, demon, I am not some lesser god." The god was trying to intimidate him with words, but despite the power Sesshoumaru could sense within him, this Hermes didn't strike him as a warrior, no more than Eurus had. The only difference was that this god was not struggling to maintain an even grasp of his power; he was not scrambling to hold onto his divinity.

"And yet you cannot sense the agony and despair hidden within the Kamikaze." He answered, watching as yet another peak was swallowed by the storm. "Two Olympian winds are dead, and the east will die soon as well. Only the north one remains: they together are responsible for the storm. Tell me where Boreas hides, or I will bide my time poisoning sprites until he arrives to claim his prey."

"...Fujin is a god of eight winds, how do you know he isn't the one behind this?"

"I am not a _kaze-yokai_, I do not care about the storm." He cared about restoring the wind, about gaining back what had been taken from him. Sesshoumaru began flying, heading east and leaving the lake behind. He knew _Hermes_ would follow if he wanted to continue speaking, but that was the god's decision to make.

Sesshoumaru had avoided the storm when it cut across his lands. He had merely remained inside and attended to other duties at his estate, with neither fear for the storm nor reason to test its power against his will. But now perhaps he would do just that: enter and see if there was a way to disturb the divine winds from within.

"But he sent you!" And of course, the Emissary followed. Hermes first overshot the Demon Lord's position, then slowed down so they were flying abreast- too close for Sesshoumaru's tastes, but at least the deity didn't try to change his course. "Why would Fujin send you instead of one of his _'cah-zay'_ demons?" Hermes asked too many questions, most of which were either irrelevant or too basic to warrant reply.

"Because there are none left." And if Sesshoumaru had not been the one to come then it would have been that _Half-breed,_ and the Demon Lord could not have allowed something like that. He would fulfill Fujin's request, and _not_ allow the task to be passed over to the mutt.

"...No one knows where Boreas is," ah, so the god _did _remember his question, but his answer only served to heighten the disdain the Demon Lord felt for his presence. "-but perhaps if you went to the three Grey Sisters then you could ask them." _Tch. _He would not waste his time with such things.

"No." They were coming very close now to the storm, near enough that he changed course just enough so he was flying north, skimming ahead of the cloud front and traveling along its broad face. It was miles of endless black cloud, there was no way to know which section of wind was the centre, or the heart of the storm. If it had not been so vast, then the simple nature of the swirling, ominous mass would have been eerily reminiscent of Naraku's final manifestation- the great spider wrapped in poisonous miasma.

No matter.

"Wait- you just said you aren't a wind-demon! You're not going in there, are you?" Of course he was. The god's exclamation was merely the push he required to stop looking at the clouds and mountains and pull away into a roll- cutting through the disturbed air and plummeting down towards the screaming chaos and noise.

The last thing he heard the god say, perhaps only by virtue of his divine place as a messenger was: _"Demon! What's your name! ?"_

But it was not a question _this _Sesshoumaru would dignify with an answer.

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><p><strong>Doo dee doo~ Lots of different Inuyasha songs went into this. =D And yeah, I threw a "this Sesshoumaru" nod in there even though it bothers me XD <strong>

**It's NOT what he's saying! It's like the fact that Pharaoh means "Great House" when translated literally, when he names himself in the Japanese he's using the same sort of formal style, not experiencing some sort of mild schizophrenia. Although, it might be kinda cool to see a fic where he DID go insane and start speaking like that... _hmm..._**

**Lack of reviews would concern me if each new chapter didn't average about 50 hits in the first 24 hours after posting. I know there're some 40-something individual computers logging in to check this out, so as long as you keep reading, I'll keep posting!  
><strong>


	7. Maelstrom

**Kikyo's Heart, Room of Angels, D9 track 3.**

**Woo, I highly recommend that everyone, at least once, go and spend some time in a Third World country. It might not be what most of you consider vacation material, but it's eye-opening to the extreme. Do you guys have any idea how weird it was to see Saddam Hussein's picture on walls as a martyr, or pro-Hezbollah flags? _Very_ weird, I gotta say.**

**Does put a chink in the update schedule though. I'm uploading this from Amsterdam during my 4 hour layover en-route back home. I don't actually know what day it is, but my laptop says Thursday and you guys've waited a while for an update. Updates, yay!**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Maelstrom

Two years ago Sesshoumaru had found himself drawn into a maelstrom created by the Wind God Fujin. The power then had not been something he had actively fought against, not to the point of actually exerting himself, but it had been incredible in its own way.

The Kamikaze was not like that. The first thing which happened after he entered the black clouds was in his ears: the horrible sound rung through his head and the demon was left flying purely on instinct. If his ears had burst it would have been more easily endured, because silence would have been preferred over this. Hearing nothing would have been better than being overwhelmed by the endless screaming and wild yowls that struck him from every angle, all directions, at the same time, at a volume he had great difficulty adjusting to.

But his eyes were no more helpful: swirling black cloud and cold wind cutting across his vision without any sense of up or down. His body was forced to either go along with the rampant currents of movement or risk being shorn apart by the thousands of forces. The Demon Lord had been wet after descending into the lake, but now the burning heat of his arrival was replaced with frost actively collecting along his armour and weapons from the storm. It was frigid up here, even if he wouldn't outwardly acknowledge it.

Bakusaiga gave a deep, angry pulse at his side to try and orient him, the sword furious as his hand closed over the hilt and he found a layer of ice coating the white hatch-marks. Tenseiga was faring no better, though less volatile in nature and only grumbling with contempt at his poor constitution. He kept his body straight and airborne, but despite all appearances he had no control over where he was going. How had Eurus ever managed to produce something like _this?_

Blind and disoriented, he was given no more time to ponder things before a surprise draft- up? down? a gust from the side? launched him in the direction opposite the one he'd been facing. When his back collided with something _solid_, his eyes snapped shut reflexively, his pride flaring from the minor mis-step before he quickly turned himself around with green poison leaking from his claws.

Ice, that was what he'd run into. And it was ice that he sunk his fingertips into now, anchoring himself to the flying berg that was nearly as large as he was, perhaps taller. It finally gave him some sort of vantage point. Even if the ice was spinning and moving rapidly in its own right, at least it wasn't ricocheting around as he had been.

No, he quickly saw that there were two whirlwinds holding it, one above and the other below- respective terms he had no way of confirming as he was swung around repeatedly, adjusting his weight to try and calm his agitated ride. Only once it was spinning at a reasonable pace was he able to look around and try to get his bearings, stopping when he saw another berg similar to the one he was holding onto- then another, and another, and then more and more as the black clouds collided and separated.

None of them were the same size, some were vaguely human-shaped, others bore resemblance to spirals, or animals, or were simply oblong and round like this one. Aside from being frozen, the only immediate similarities were the whirlwinds holding them firmly in place, like chains, and the distinct aura of power he could now feel pulsing through each one. _Alive_.

So this was how a storm filled with wind spirits continued to move and gather them without being torn apart from the inside. Now he understood.

_Chink_.

The feel of something cold caught his attention, Sesshoumaru quickly looking down at where his left hand had been knuckle-deep in the ice: now it was half-way across his palm, bulging out of the berg's side. Did they think he was some sort of wind spirit? That he could be trapped by an element like ice?

He waited until the rotation of the berg he was on and the one closest to it were lined up, then drew Bakusaiga with a burst of electric green energy. The blade itself only nicked the icy layer, but that was the intention: cutting the spirit or demon inside would inflict Bakusaiga's punishment on the unwary soul. Instead, the frozen casing shattered as the sword ripped through it, and a burst of wind signalled the release of whatever had been inside.

His eyes couldn't follow it at first, then he saw the several-dozen pieces of paper unfold and bend themselves in the maelstrom like panels of a kite. A paper mask formed first, followed by wings which allowed it to do what he had not been able to accomplish: fly and navigate the chaotic winds inside the storm.

The demon swooped forward and back a few times, clearly disoriented, then turned on one thin paper wing to come towards him. It dove down and unfolded itself a few more times, more paper sheets and thin sticks of wood appearing to hold it aloft, giving it strength, and by the time it made a final pass near him -slowing down dramatically to make sure he understood-, the Demon Lord snapped his left hand free of the ice and did the same for his foot, jumping onto the lesser demon's back and crouching low.

Bakusaiga slashed through the berg he had been holding onto, a great blackness erupting from the ice before it was even finished breaking. This one looked like cloth, dark like the swirling clouds, and vanished through the winds too desperately for him to follow it with his eyes.

The kite demon carried him through the field of icebergs, Bakusaiga working along with the claws of his left hand to shatter and break the cocoons of ice. Each one held a seal on them, not very strong, but it was what kept the ice solid on the inside rather than protected from beyond. The only true annoyance were the persistent shards of ice still clinging to the back of his hand and fingers- his acid would not eat through them, but he had too much to concern himself with right now.

He didn't watch to see what happened to each of the spirits, sprites, and demons that he released. Some of them dove straight down into the storm looking for escape, others shot up and away seeking the same thing. However, when he _did_ deign to take his attention off his immediate task, he saw several, then several dozen, then upwards of a hundred, following. The winds felt like they were growing calmer, more consistent, the more the spirits gathered and calmed their own small pockets of the storm...

Bakusaiga had grown irritated with so many inert targets by the time the concentration of wind demons following him had increased to the point where, maybe, the Demon Lord was able to convince himself that he was able to hear again.

Where was she? No- where was Boreas? Had his presence here truly not been detected yet? How massive, exactly, was this storm that the mass of demons and spirits following him had not been noticed by whoever was controlling it? Or did it just mean he was being ignored?

As soon as he felt his temper begin to rise at the wretched thought, the winds abruptly changed and the creature carrying him quickly banked down to its left, letting out a cry as its paper face folded itself into an expression of strain and anger. Sunlight cut through the clouds overhead- but only for a moment, just long enough to tell him time had passed and that morning, or perhaps afternoon, had come.

The sunlight taunted some of the following demons to break away and make an attempt at freedom, but the kite under him hissed as it saw this and then continued following the wind. There was only one path now and Sesshoumaru could see it: the winds collecting and running a similar course now, ripping away the clouds and providing, finally, an ounce of clarity and direction.

He lept off the kite and allowed the lesser demon to begin folding and reforming again into a self the Demon Lord didn't pause to look at. Flying on his own again, the clouds pulled away and the air was filled with shards of frozen water, and then with hundreds more blue-white chunks of ice.

_'Find her, Bakusaiga.'_ Spiralling through the air and ignorant of the ice-shards collecting on his face and fur, the sword resonated with his intentions before he drew Bakusaiga back out into the cold air and let a massive bolt of the green lightning arc out. The sound of so many bergs shattering all at once along his left side rendered the dog general deaf again, but he wore through it as dragons, wolves, and shades all began to scatter, run, or join with the cloud of spirits following the main path of the wind down, down, down. He sheathed Bakusaiga and followed the wind with them.

Without warning his eyes failed him along with his ears- sunlight filling his world and blinding gold eyes that had grown used to the dim interior of the clouds. Allowing his body to carry him instinctively rather than making definite choices about where and how to fly, his vision cleared slowly of the harsh, over-exposed glare. When he could see again, he recognized what had become of the Kamikaze.

The massive storm had folded over itself, the outer flanks pulling in to form a circle, a centre-point of clear, steady air not unlike the eye of a hurricane. Looking down from so many miles up, the mountains of Thrace appeared like nothing more than small, jagged hills, but he quickly noticed one that took precedence over the others.

It was not the tallest, and it was not the darkest, but it was the one with four separate peaks, one facing, he assumed, each cardinal direction. The four tops had been worn flat by eons of wind, and even as he watched from the approach Sesshoumaru both saw and felt a massive outpouring of energy: stood witness as the south, east, and west peaks each crumbled.

Boreas?

As he had expected, watching the clouds peel back revealed so many thousands more captured spirits than Sesshoumaru had seen, never mind actually released. It wasn't surprising for him either- locusts, kites, lanterns, sparrows, any spirit at all connected with the wind was liable to have been snatched up within the storm, and that was only counting the living ones. Not even Bakusaiga could slice through bergs the size of hills down to the ones which were little more than snowballs...

_'But where is she?'_ He was going to find her, he was _going_ to bring her back with him. He would not be foiled by some western deity!

He felt his vision going red the more he thought of it: the taunting, the games, the disrespect paid to him by celestial beings since this had begun. The gods felt that they could exploit their position and he would bend and meekly accept what the doled out? This Boreas would drag Sesshoumaru's affairs into his petty struggle to survive without humans? No, no he would not. Fujin could take the greater wrong but Sesshoumaru would not stand aside and let a god who portrayed himself a _child_ strike against this western deity unopposed. _He_ was the Lord of the Western Lands, and _he_ would show these western gods what that meant!

His eyes were red and his skin went pale, Tenseiga and Bakusaiga both thrumming with approval as they merged into his growing body along with his clothes and armour. His perspective on the world didn't change, there was still no one particular scent which struck his sensitive nose in the cold air, and this high up there was no grand difference between the world he had seen and the one he was looking down on now.

But he was moving faster, now his body had both the strength and the speed to all but ignore the chaotic twists and pulls of the calming maelstrom. He did not dive straight down towards the mountain, but ran around it instead, toxic green acid pouring from his pink lips and dripping down his fangs. He howled and the mist spread down over the icy cages, causing them to melt, weaken, and then burst from the inside. Did he care if the spirits were released and then died from the poison? No, because they would not be going to Boreas. So he didn't care whether they lived or died, attacked or joined him. It did not matter, because they would not serve the north wind's pupose.

_'Where is she?' _Not here, not found yet. _'Where are you?'_ Not answering him, he couldn't hear her. _'Where are you! ?'_ He didn't know! He didn't know where she was and she wasn't coming to him! He couldn't find her spirit high in the clouds, or when he began to rampage down along the paths the wind had carved to carry the first round of spirits and souls for the north wind's approval.

"_Kagura!"_ God? _Hah!_ He would kill him, he, the Demon Lord Sesshoumaru, Lord of the Western Lands, Dog Demon General, would destroy this God of the North Wind.

And so help him, if he did not find her he would kill Fujin too.

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><p><strong>Angry puppy goes rawr!<strong>


	8. Boreas, the North Wind

**D9 track 3, Kikyo's Heart.**

"**Boreas was the Greek god of the cold north wind and the bringer of winter. His name meant "North Wind" or "Devouring One". Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell and wearing a billowing cloak." - ilu Wiki!**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Boreas, The North Wind

The fight began before he even reached the mountain top. A blast of wind so cold it froze his fur to his skin struck him right in the chest and travelled down along his belly and flanks. It was a horrible feeling, painful, but not enough to drag him off course or slow the Demon Lord's charge.

His front paws slammed down on the flat, icy rock and his jaws let loose a torrent of liquid green acid. The toxins met another blast of frozen air they exploded into a noxious cloud, more wind combining to try and concentrate the sick mess into an attack worthy of throwing back at him, but the Dog General simply took the hit and let his aura null both the poison and the bite of the acid.

Sesshoumaru did not actually _see_ his opponent until he caught a lump of ice between his teeth -something thrown at him on a gust of wind to bludgeon his eye- and crushed the pieces to release whatever was floundering about inside. The time it took him to perform that simple act was enough for the old man standing on the mountain to break open two smaller parcels of ice- but instead of releasing the spirits, his thick, winkled fingers tore out the living creatures and stuffed them into the god's mouth. Sesshoumaru _heard_ the crunch of tiny bones and inanimate components under the old man's teeth, and the burst of power it gave his opponent almost sent his own rage completely out of control.

Boreas, for all the talk and hate, presented himself as every other Olympian the Demon Lord had had the displeasure of meeting: a human form, with nothing at all to denote divinity or celestial prowess. Boreas was an old man, gap-toothed and balding, with spindly grey hair that was wild around the sides of his head and drooped around his ears like old sodden fleece. His dress was more formal than the other two gods: a long robe of deep blue cut with gold and red geometric bands. It was a straight, triangular garb cinched high at the waist, with long sleeves and a thick fur wrap around his shoulders to stave off the cold of his mountain abode.

Old man, blue robe, and a stink of stale water and dirty, muddy ice. All he needed to know.

The god's magic was strong, just not strong enough. Two failed blows to the front and shoulders told his opponent to stop trying to out-muscle him, yet his strategy did not change even when a third great gale came down on Sesshoumaru's head. That third blow was the only time he found himself buckling under the weight and pressure to remain upright. But _no!_ He would not bow like some mutt to this great pretender!

"_Where is she!"_ The god's answer was two lashes of wind which came from behind, Sesshoumaru leaping out to try and smash Boreas' human shell between his paws before he felt the wind grasp the thin bones of his hind legs and draw them up and back behind him. His numb chest struck the rocky ground as his paws scrambled for purchase, claws ripping up the pale pink stone and leaving smoking, acidic gashes in the rock.

"Where's _who?_"

Another eruption of acid from his throat was his answer to the condescending question and humiliating bond. As the old man swung his arms about gathering the noxious gasses into a cloud, the Demon Lord rejected his true form and returned to his smaller, more manoeuvrable human body.

"_Bakusaiga!"_ He changed back but his eyes were still red, his field of vision scarred with the crimson glare as he leapt and twisted through the air to avoid the returning blast of poison- drawing Bakusaiga just as he came down in front of the North Wind.

The sword screamed as it left its sheathe, but instead of flesh it cleft through a cloud of falling snow. Snarling as his nose turned him to his right, Sesshoumaru was forced to jump back through the same sparkling shower to avoid being blasted aside by a cyclone of cold air and ice. Charging again with Bakusaiga at the ready, he jumped once over a discus of ice and twisted his body around to give the sword more momentum as he swung, aiming to cleave that old face in two.

But again, the god moved with the wind and was gone. Eurus had not moved like that, had possessed not even a fraction of the same speed: Sesshoumaru could have his eyes locked on the wind deity's form and then watch it _phase out _by the time he physically got there. So instead, Bakusaiga bit dirt and vented its frustration on the flat stone: ripping off a portion of the plateau and letting it sheer off down the mountainside, the stone crackling furiously, disintegrating down into dust.

"_Mononoke_." Turning, the old man was standing so close to him that all his frozen left hand had to do was-

What?

-_no._

It wasn't the wind that reached him, nor was it the force of it when it struck, that made him drop Bakusaiga. It was something he was unprepared for, something he didn't see coming, only heard- and then he just stopped hearing.

Sesshoumaru felt both of his eardrums simultaneously burst at a sound he had never heard before. A nauseating cry that persisted and echoed through him, rattling his bones and causing cracks to form around his armour's spiked pauldron. But the armour would mend, his ears would mend, his vision -when it fled him in a burst of red and black behind his eyes- would return. What he would _not_ get back were the three agonizing seconds it took his body to recognize what had happened to it, three seconds which allowed Boreas to lower the large curled shell from his lips, and grin at him with those uneven, gap-riddled teeth.

Deaf and enraged, he attacked with his claws this time, his left hand slashing through the cloud of snow that replaced the North Wind. His green whip exploded from his right fingertips in response, licking the god's tangled hair before he was made to dodge to his left over to where Bakusaiga had fallen. Sesshoumaru was just reaching down to snatch up the sword's white hilt when another blast of cold wind struck him square in the chest.

And this time the wind was actually strong enough to throw him back- the blow unexpected because he had not heard it charging towards him. Sesshoumaru was struck and sailed backwards, flipping his body over once so he could slam his feet down, skidding backwards, and regain his purchase on the rocky plateau. The wind lingered after it was spent though, a cold, metallic sensation clinging to his exposed throat and pressing tight against his armour and chest.

He could not _hear._ Sesshoumaru could _feel_ his heart beginning to pound from both the adrenaline and the fury from being caught off-guard like that- twice! Once by Boreas' horn and again by the wind he hadn't seen. He could _see_ Tenseiga as he reflexively grasped the second hilt at his belt and prepared to draw the memento, but that was as far as his vision was able to service him- where was the god?

Fanning his other senses out in an attempt to fill in the huge amount of space left dark without his ears, they would heal but he would need several more minutes for the effect to be reversed. He knew, he discovered, that the released spirits from the storm were fighting to free their fellow prisoners in the sky, and failing to escape the maelstrom's grip even when they fled out into the eye. Bakusaiga was still flaring on the ground, the sword reacting just before the North Wind phased into being in front of him- _directly_ in front of him.

So that was his excuse for not _'hearing'_ Tenseiga warn him not to strike.

"_You do not belong here, eastern demon."_ The katana slid as a silver blur from its sheathe, but Boreas' speed saw the old god's fingers fastened tight around the demon's neck. Tenseiga resisted the swing in spirit, not body, as its charmed edge bit into the god's shoulder and chest, sticking fast against the cloth where it began to smoke and hiss. "_This is a matter for Gods, not their pets. Go back to your master and whimper at his feet like a good dog, time is running out for Fujin and his fellows in the east to recline on the backs of human love."_

Humans had nothing to do with this.

Tenseiga was beginning to burn, heating up as a weak pulse of blue light revealed something key to the Demon Lord's eyes: Boreas' immortality. He knew the sensation the sword was sending him, recognized the tension on the blade as it refused to slice the wool and leather making up the god's clothing. It was like a human sword, stuck to a bone or vertebrae, unable to slide smoothly through or out of a victim's chest. Tenseiga was stuck in the twisted, abrasive fibres of Boreas' life.

"Go ahead,Demon Lord." One of Sesshoumaru's ears was healing faster than the other, the words distant and muffled by the blood and fluid that was slowly dripping from one canal and staining his shoulder. He felt Tenseiga heating up inside his right hand, despite the left one resting with it on the hilt, and was surprised when he felt the god release his brief hold and step back- arms held out and inviting. "Use your bladeless sword and turn me mortal, let's see how powerful Fujin's magic truly is."

_Trap._

This was a trap. He had seen it form but had not acknowledged it, dismissed the warnings for something else and pushed on ahead. He had _not_ forgotten Fujin's words regarding Tenseiga and the blessing, but drawing Tenseiga wasn't the mistake he'd made, nor was dropping Bakusaiga.

'_I'm being frozen.'_

Tenseiga was burning to warn him not to swing, but also to make him realize that he could not feel the heat in his left hand- the one he had touched the ice with in the maelstrom. His left foot was the same way: if he moved it now after standing still for a few moments, he could feel the rocks and bits of gravel clinging to him where they had gotten caught in the forming ice. It was on his chest from taking too many blunt attacks from the wind god. Now his neck, from Boreas' touch.

"Here, let me help you." He hadn't moved Tenseiga, the blade's end still resting just on the old man's chest, in the dip between shoulder and collarbone after the god took a long step back. The sword didn't notice until Boreas' hand was already on it, and Sesshoumaru was caught off-guard by a sudden, fierce pain in his elbow as the ice abruptly leapt up his arm and bit into the joint- drawing blood. Boreas' hand closed around the end of Tenseiga, ignorant of the sword's edge, and it-

_'It... broke...?'_

There was a beat, a flash, a moment in time where Tenseiga didn't know what had happened to it, where the sword had no reaction. That it could be broken so easily when the blade had only been under threat, not direct stress, was incomprehensible to them both. Then the moment passed, and the sensation that came down through the hilt into his body was one he had never experienced before, not even from this sword that he had denied, abandoned, and misused already so many times before.

_Run away._ Run away before he was snapped the same way. Flee and hide and learn from this mistake.

"You want it? Fetch, boy!" Sesshoumaru's eyes didn't move from the unknown spot on the horizon where his gaze had fixed itself. He ignored the bone shard as the god of the North Wind wagged the piece of Tenseiga in front of him and then tossed it across the plateau. He heard the god's laughter but he couldn't, for the life of him, find the hatred, or the anger, or the pride to move.

_Run away._ A plea- _plea?_ from the sword he'd dropped minutes before. Bakusaiga was a part of him, not a memento, not a relic meant to protect him like the Tenseiga. _Run away, before you are left swordless and one-armed again, flee before you die alone on the other side of the world. _This was not the place for pride, and it was not the time for compassion. This was... this was not something he knew.

"You demons are no fun when you're afraid." Pain_-! _He didn't flinch from it, refused to move his left leg as the ice pierced his ankle, already creeping up nearly all the way to his knee. "And soon Fujin will be here too, I'll have to pay him back for my brothers..." The words were said with a sardonic chuckle that Sesshoumaru only half-heard. Boreas was walking away, admiring the sunset while the Demon Lord struggled to breathe.

He wanted to retrieve Bakusaiga, but was stuck staring now at the broken length of Tenseiga. Yes, this had happened before to swords of his father's fangs, so yes, it could be reforged, but that wasn't the point_._ He didn't understand. He understood demons losing against gods, yes, but he did not... could not... understand... running away...?

_Run away._ How? How could an extension of himself, the sword he'd dropped to the ground but that he had formed within his own body... how could it ask... flowers?

"Oh! A spirit!" A ball of ice snatched from the air opened up between Boreas' hands, revealing a cascade of crimson flower petals. The wind immediately kicked up as the god sucked them up two, three at a time with a chuckle, the spirit reacting and trying to get away. The struggle caused the cloud of petals to scatter and several of them, laden with an intoxicating scent, made it all the way to where the Demon Lord was standing. The wind was erratic, between the spirit's level of control in her semi-aware state and the god's coy attempts to rake the drifting petals back towards him, a handful of the small, red ovals dancing by Sesshoumaru's nose twice...

Before one settled down and pressed itself against his lips. Then came the warmth between his fingers, then the tug on his sleeve just above the edge of that creeping ice. The pressure on his lips changed into a smooth warmth that travelled across his cheek, the heat moving down his throat and ignoring the painful cold clinging to the back of his neck, spreading down behind his shoulders.

_'Kagura...?'_ The sensation was the same but the touch was not, it progressed quickly, and clung with a strength he hadn't previously felt from her. Scared? She murmured something to him that he couldn't actually hear, but his mind recalled something different:

"_Her spirit will require nothing of you beyond your continued health and longevity. When her mind and soul are prepared to live again, it will be so."_

_'I cannot hear you, Kagura.'_ Boreas was paying attention to him again, despite the fact that he had not moved or said anything after sheathing the broken Tenseiga. Between the attention and her kiss, something in him woke up. _'Kagura...!'_ First curiosity, then suspicion flashed through the god's pale, cold eyes. Suspicion which very quickly gave over to anger and- and _pain!_

Each joint in his left hand abruptly flared as stems of ice formed and rammed through the bones, shattering each bend as the ice leapt up to his shoulder. His knee was impaled as he stood on it and ice fired up across his collarbones and down along his spine from the patches on his chest and neck respectively. His vision bled crimson again, his body reacting to the attacks on it as he needed to either flee or die-

"You've interfered enough, demon." He was moving but was unaware of pushing himself into the air and gliding over, quickly, to where Bakusaiga was still resting on its side. He scrapped the sword up with his working right hand and was struck with a sudden realization:

Fighting would kill him if he continued, and dying in this manner would be a disgrace. He would be crushed under the heel of an opponent who wouldn't even give him the dignity of- _No!_

'_Bakusaiga-! ?'_ They couldn't do this to him! He couldn't be betrayed by his own weapons! Slamming the disloyal sword into its sheathe he could feel both it and the Tenseiga pulling away from him, urging flight over dishonourable slaughter- as if running away would-_!_

"_Like a good pet,"_ The gale that struck him this time came with Boreas' laughing voice attached. Sesshoumaru was blasted straight off the plateau and found himself being driven by a change in pressure manipulated by the god- _"I'll have you buried at the foot of your master's grave!"_

He was forced through the air until his back slammed into the crumbled remains of one of the mountain's collapsed tops. But he didn't stop going. Sesshoumaru felt his body being driven further and further down through the shattering stone: his ribs were compressed by the air and snapped like Tenseiga's blade, his kimono and pants shredded until the wind stopped screaming at him and let up its charge. Every bone felt broken, every shard of rock coated with blood, his vision useless in the dark but wavering back and forth anyways. He could hear the wind coming closer...

'_Sesshoumaru...?'_

And then there was light, and the Demon Lord was worlds away from Thrace.

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><p><strong>Poor Sesshou~ Not my favourite chapter, surprisingly, but I think that's just because I spent so much longer with the later ones xD<strong>

**Next chapter should be good. Keep reading!**


	9. Reanimation

**Kikyo's Heart, Aika, Dearest String Version, Dearest, Kaza-na, To the End of Sorrow, Homage for Inuyasha (String version).**

**This chapter relies on the reader being familiar with Kagura's death scene, specifically the Anime version, but I'm to understand that the Manga and the Anime were basically the same.**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Reanimation

Sesshoumaru could not remember the last time he had been unknowingly pulled into the spirit world. The flash of light which accompanied the transition from one world to the other left him stunned after the adrenaline and injury of battle, and both the noise of the storm and the North Wind's attacks were replaced with the eerie silence of the spirit realm. The pain and agony in his body was lessened, almost gone, but persisted even as the transition was complete, and he wasn't sure what exactly that meant for his wounds.

For a moment, he almost believed he'd gone deaf again, or that he had died.

His mind did not recover quickly, especially not when both his swords- the whole and the broken, ceased their agonizing cries for him to flee what had become a disastrous scenario. He was horrified, truly so, to realize that he had done exactly what the blades had wanted, that he'd left the battlefield, and worse: that he'd been rescued.

"Sesshoumaru..?" He heard his name and then his vision cleared, the world around him forming from the white haze that had engulfed him atop Boreas' mountain. His power flared and he watched the cracks in his armour mend, his shredded sleeves repairing themselves as the rest of his outfit was altered and fixed. Around him, familiar trees, a worn dirt road, a sweeping hillside layered in pale yellow flowers under a blue sky... All known to him, even the occasional, foreign, red petal that drifted past where he stood, each one carrying her scent.

He began to turn but stopped- the pain in his leg returned, and he realized now that simply changing realms had not relieved him of the icy burdens clinging to his body. Looking down at his covered left arm, his clawed hand was petrified within the cocoon of blue ice that had formed around his fingers, the prism growing and having crept up his arm to where he felt it straining to reach his shoulder, just under the restored pauldron. His leg was clumsy now that he could bend neither his ankle nor his knee.

"_Don't go..._" Go?

Moving with any measure of grace required flying, but not obviously. His weight lifting up just enough that he was able to keep his right foot anchored on the ground and slowly turn as he had initially wanted. He kept his face neutral from the pain and turmoil that the battle had left him with, and let his golden eyes slip into the crimson pair that had been watching him so closely for the last several minutes.

From her eyes and the scarlet markings decorating her eyelids, he took in the black lengths of her hair where they were bound up out of her face in a bun, held there with a pair of slim feathers and a green-beaded comb. But the comb had slipped, hanging lop-sided with its long teeth caught on the ebony strands. And her kimono, magenta stripes patterned with scattered butterflies on white, was dishevelled and out of place; her torso weeping blood from the three gaping wounds in her chest. The under-layers she was wearing were also exposed as she knelt there, surrounded by a pool of crimson blossoms, the flowers each stained with that red. She was dying...?

"Please, _please_ don't go..." Back to her eyes and now he saw how pale she looked, worn down and exhausted. This was not right. As a spirit she should have been resting, restoring her energy and becoming well again. Hardly any of the prescribed hundred years had passed yet, but she should still have looked better than this. The sight of her tears disturbed him, they should not have been there: she had not wept when she died, she had smiled.

"I know you're mad but- please, just-"

"I am not mad." But her tears were not endearing to him, they did not make him want to fulfill her request and stay. If she could only conduct herself through weeping then clearly she was not well enough yet for him to-

"But I'm not Naraku and you-" What? He watched her slowly lose what little composure she still had. She folded her slim hands on the fragrant ground in front of her as she bowed to him, her head down and body prostrate as far as it would go with her wounds. "-you followed his scent here so you could... But I'm not..." The rest of her words were lost behind tears and sobbing, things Sesshoumaru did not want to sift through with his newly restored hearing.

But they had had this conversation once before, why had she forgotten his answer? Is this how the witch would have behaved if he had discarded truth and confirmed a lie about Naraku? He knew the difference, despite their similarities, between her scent and the shape-shifter who had spawned her. Such a mistake was one that the Half-breed might make, not him.

"You insult my abilities, Kagura." Pain struck him again, from his mutilated hand this time, before he spoke, the words helping restore his composure as he gave an uncharacteristic wince. Pushing off the ground with his foot, if he had been capable of walking easily towards her he would have done so, but he refused to hobble like an injured animal. He landed gracefully in front of her, over-compensating for the weight clinging to the left side of his body as he landed closer to her doubled form than he'd intended.

Kneeling would be impossible, or simply too painful to be worth it. Only his right leg could bend and move properly, and forcing his left knee to work would probably require breaking the ice around his leg first, then breaking it again when he wanted to stand. The threat of the ice continuing to spread meant he couldn't even pry off the blue growth spreading across his chest, so freeing his leg seemed very unlikely. All of this meant that he had to simply stand there over her, but the fact that he considered moving down to her level, maybe, meant something he hadn't thought of.

"Sit up." He ordered, watching her coldly as she rubbed one striped sleeve over her eyes to dry away the tears. The material scratched at her pale skin and left it raw: a just punishment for behaving so pathetically. She was not dying, and she had already done so once before anyways. He would not tolerate her acting like this was a new experience.

However...

"As I told you once before," When Kagura looked up at him with her dark lips pursed like that, he saw fresh tears struggling to take the place of the ones she'd already banished. Frustrated by her behaviour, he extended his right hand out slowly, his gold eyes still trained on her, and brushed aside a bead of the infernal wetness from where it was clinging to her cheek. "-I knew it was you."

"But you said-"

"That I knew it was you." He interrupted, then looked down on her with disdain. "Do not blame me for the tricks your dreams have played on your own mind." She blinked up at his harsh words, her expression changing slowly from the fearful and open look she had worn thus far into something more guarded, wary. Yes, she thought he was lying, or taunting her by changing his answer. He would not argue with her delusions unless she continued to accuse him of motivations or actions not his own. He would wait for her to realize the truth, not campaign to bring it to her.

"Dreams...?" There, that was better, he didn't even have to nod or say anything else before she began to understand. And once she did, the imaginary wounds on her body vanished and the wind-demon leapt to her feet in front of him suddenly. The action highlighted just how close he'd come to her when her arm and shoulder brushed up against his fur.

"Why did you stay! ?" She demanded _loudly_, causing him to blink twice as he continued to look down on her. A moment ago, if he remembered correctly, she had been _begging_ him to- "Wait- nevermind! Why did you _come_ if you knew I wasn't Naraku?" He would not answer that, there was no reason for him to explain his actions five years after the fact. Or was she even aware of how much time had passed? _Tch_. She dared to glare up at him as if he had something to answer for, and the longer she stood like that, waiting, the more he felt like posing his own question.

"Why did you come back?" He put nothing behind the words, merely let them fall from his lips. "And follow me, rather than escape on your precious wind?" The Western Lands were hardly free roaming, his territories were several days across and included much of the land the Half-breed and his friends had roamed over during their travels, but the world was much wider than that.

This question, he knew, was not fair. It served his purpose to deflect her attention, but he already knew the answer. In fact, knowing made it all the more amusing for him as he watched her stunned expression and the red creeping into her pale cheeks. Of course he knew her reasons, foolish Kagura.

"I'm not the mystery here!" She shouted, her face still flushed and now with her hands balled up into tight fists at her sides. "Stupid dog- _you're_ the one that makes no sense!"

"Whereas you are quite simple." He replied, ignoring her attempt to make this discussion about him and the insult that came with it. When she opened her mouth to speak again he merely cut her off with: "And very forward, often at the most inappropriate times." Like when he was conducting business within his lands, settling disputes or accepting tribute from lesser demons. An unexpected kiss from the wind or an embrace from behind could be unsettling at the wrong moment: and she had a very poor sense of timing.

"Then why did you come?" Tch, he had already decided not to answer that. "I mean this time, why did you follow the storm?" Oh?

"So you are aware of the Kamikaze..." Her amusing expression faded as she regained some of her composure, still defensive towards him but far from descending back into those weak tears. She had one hand up now over her chest, fingers coiled tightly like she was holding onto something he couldn't see.

"Everything suddenly became loud and cold," she said quietly, no longer looking him in the eye, but rather at his chest, "-it's warm now, but there's so much noise..." Noise? He couldn't hear... wait, yes he could. It was distant and difficult for him to pick up on, echoing through the veil between this world and the next: wind. He could feel wind beginning to blow across the meadow. "How badly are you injured, Sesshoumaru?"

His first reaction was to brush aside the concern, followed surprisingly by a need to speak truthfully. Simply hearing the question caused a brief tremble through his torso: broken bones reminding him that though he couldn't feel the pain at this moment, only his armour had recovered by coming here. His body was healing, but not fast enough as that foreign wind began to pluck apart the flowers along the edges of the field, circling. Cold wind, coming from the north- his sense of it convinced him to give her no answer at all.

"It's becoming cold again..." She murmured, still standing as close to him as she had been before, and he looked down curiously as her black head moved to rest against his fur. Presence, weight, and warmth, he could smell the flowers that had stained her clothes red- a reverse of the blood which had painted the blossoms first. Her scent grounded him in this place, with the thick grasses and brisk alpine air.

When her fingers passed between his and hung onto his right hand, he felt himself squeeze back, aware of what would happen as a result. With the contact, her body went rigid against his, something he accepted without showing concern over. The pain of being driven into a mountain was coming back to him, the veil beginning to ripple as the outer edges of her meadow began to blacken and die with the presence of frost, the darkness creeping inwards at a rapid pace. There was a metallic crunch that soon followed, the ice across his chest punching through his armour for a second time and biting down into his ribs. The cold began to spread into his insides and reverse much of the healing his body had managed to accomplish, it was excruciating, but he only allowed himself to shut his eyes in response.

"Why did you come?" She asked again, the Demon Lord growling deep inside his shattered chest as she reached out and tried to grasp his left sleeve in one small hand. He warned her away from coming into contact with the ice: he wouldn't allow himself to spread it to her. The fact that the pain was overwhelming him inside was only motivation to push her away. "Sesshoumaru, why did you come again?"

"Because this time-" And that meant _pushing her away._ He pulled his hand out of hers and used it to move her face away from where she had pressed it into his fur. He had to press the smooth backs of his claws against her throat and chin to make her move all the way back, ignoring the tension in his hand and arm as he struggled to cope with the increasing awareness he had of his wounds. The pain was persistent, he needed something to distract him from it- even if it was her. No- _especially_ if it was her. Once he had Kagura where he wanted her, he opened his eyes again and changed them from gold to scarlet, fingers moving so he was holding the back of her neck now rather than pushing against the front. Anything to cope with the pain. "-you belong to _me_." She was his.

His responsibility, his companion, _his_ charge, _his_ woman, _his_ property, _his_ Kagura, _his, his his_. She was _his_ and no one else's, because he had given her freedom and she had chosen to come back to him instead: proving his ownership over her. Ownership that could not be bought or traded or abandoned or denied in any way, by either of them. He had come because someone had tried to steal what belonged to him, and the same possessive nature that had driven his father to die within a burning castle would happily condemn him under a frozen mountain now.

The force he put behind the kiss on her lips would tell her all of this, his claws an unnecessary form of encouragement along the back of her neck- she didn't resist him, but true to her nature she did wedge one arm between them. Her breath was hot, lips warm and open to him because she had been about to speak when he dragged her in. The defiant arm pushing on him was only there to contrast the way her lips followed his when he pulled back- because they did follow. His height and the threat of the ice were all that kept her from rising off the ground after him, Kagura settling instead with pressing her face against the fur on his shoulder again, one arm pulling around behind him and keeping away from the ice on his back, the other lost in his fur.

The meadow was dying around them, shrunken now to just the sole patch of red flowers at their feet. He could clearly hear the world beyond this little pocket her soul had created: the slabs of rock settling over and around him where his body had been rammed by the wind's fury, never-mind the storm screaming just beyond the layers of stone. The pain in his body was becoming more and more intense as he stood there with her, watching her through crimson eyes. The partial transformation was something to help him as the ice ripped its way up his arm again, the blue crystals joining with the frozen collar that had wrapped itself around his throat. But the technique was failing him, blood slipping down from the corner of his mouth as his body was incapable of healing fast enough to deal with the mounting damage.

"When we return, you will flee east." Speaking brought more blood up to stain his teeth and coat his tongue and lips, his claws leaving her neck so he wouldn't slash her skin as another jolt of pain ripped through his chilled body. "You will escape the maelstrom with the aid of Fujin, and you will find your way home."

"You're out of your mind." She answered boldly, condescension in her voice as she looked up at him sternly- it was the sort of defiance that ought to have endeared him, but which only served to make him mad now. He was cold, and bleeding, and in pain, and now this stupid woman would not listen to him. "Sesshoumaru I will not abandon you to just d-"

"_I will not die!"_ He roared the words at her, forcing his voice high enough to cover the thin whine in the back of his throat as the ice moved again. His hand grasped her by the arm, Sesshoumaru forcing his claws through both the kimono and her skin underneath as he held her up tightly.

The scent of her blood didn't calm him, not when he felt the ice running down his spine branch out and wrap around his side like a bladed hug, slashing his skin open and causing red to stain the inside of his broken armour. Even his own blood felt cold. The wind was so high around them now it was worming into his head through his ears, screaming as it tore the flowers apart petal by petal. "_And you will not be consumed by a gluttonous false god!_" No, he would not allow it. "_We will-"_

And then the last of their world shattered. Light had carried him here but it was darkness that swallowed his soul before it deposited him back where he had been- blind and in pain, crushed between boulders and ice, bleeding, freezing, dying...

"_Ka...gura..."_

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><p>He was sheltered from the wind here, but could hear the screams and roars just beyond the edge of the collapsed mountainside. Was it day? Night? How long had he spent with her before returning here? The mountain was rumbling and shifting, but no longer crashing around him and moving violently- was it the memory of his impact or the incredible power battering it from without? He couldn't move, he didn't know.<p>

He'd felt the ice leap from one leg over to the other, the cold merging across his shoulders and side, spreading and invading his body like a virus. His true form failed him, the red leaking out of his eyes and fading as his resistance to the pain knuckled and began to crumble away.

_'I will not scream.'_ He refused to scream, but he couldn't stop himself from searching the darkness blindly with his eyes. _'I will not... give him that satisfaction-!'_ He would not scream, he would not die, and he would not... call out to her again.

Had she already left? He couldn't sense her presence so that meant- then she was gone. Yes, right that- it was good, for her to go away. It was right that she leave, that he ordered her away. Yes, yes it was...

...But it wasn't.

_'I will not, I will not...'_ He caught her scent and inhaled as deeply as his shattered chest would let him, eyes closed now because they showed him nothing when open. In the darkness he could wince, and flinch, and contort his face as the rest of his body was mangled and frozen. In the darkness his shame was for him alone to witness and endure, something no one could share with him.

Not even she could experience it, even when he felt her hand hold the side of his face. She couldn't see what was happening when her fingertips brushed over the crescent moon on his forehead and then moved back through his hair, wiping away beads of sweat and blood.

"We will not die, my love." Real words, ones he could feel as they were whispered past one ear. Real scent, real hands, real lips on his forehead and a real, living heart beating over him as his was slowly encased in ice. "Go to sleep... if a Half-breed can rest with an arrow in his heart, then you can slumber within ice..."

He opened his eyes but couldn't see her, just felt her breath on his skin and the warmth of her living presence. He heard her breathing in and out slowly as her bare feet scraped against jagged stone to avoid coming into contact with the ice.

The rough sleeve of her kimono wiped away the blood from his lips and chin, then cleared away the red that had spilled from his eyes like tears. He was made presentable as the greedy cold travelled up his face and sealed his mouth, but the pain began to seep out of his entombed limbs as her touch lingered on his forehead.

His eyes were brushed shut by a breath of warm wind, and his mind and body were sealed against the wind god's tormenting touch.

They would not die, not yet.

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><p><strong>Very long chapter for this story, but I gotta say I liked it. I have a hard time being convinced that a completely selfish character like Sesshoumaru can feel a selfless love, so I tried to reconcile the two with his possessive outburst. In practice he's taking almost EXACTLY the same course of action a selfless lover would, it's just all the stuff on the inside that's different.<strong>

**I should point out here that this is where the plot slows down a bit. This work is predominantly about the relationship between the two of them, so that'll be taking precedence from here to the end. Just felt like I should give a bit of a warning, the story's been paced pretty quickly until now and it slows down quite a bit for the second half.**

**Hope you guys are okay with all of this. See you next chapter!**


	10. To be Humbled

**Brothers in Arms, Longing, Diamond, Dearest. Should have listened to Ice by Lights from the start though, frickin' perfect song, but I stumbled across it only during the editing phase.**

**It's Monday, wut.**

**Yeah I know now shut up. I was up until six this morning reading fanfiction, and I want to frickin' update even if it IS late in the afternoon!**

**This is actually the second version of Chapter 10, the first one just didn't get done and I ended up skipping it to move on with the rest of the story. I actually went and finished all the way up to 19 before finally forcing this horrible thing to get done. It's not a bad chapter content-wise, it just sucked to write. **

**Originally this chapter picked up only a few seconds after the end of 9, but the interactions were just _awkward_ and none of it worked smoothly. I like this a lot better. And it's a Monday update so you don't get to complain (much).**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

To be Humbled

"I call it a shame."

"So you aren't going to help him?"

"I warned him from fighting and told him it would be his responsibiltiy. Let this be a lesson."

"You Easterners are cruel..."

Shut up, just shut up and go away. That was what she wanted to tell them, that she wanted them to go away and not talk about him like this where she could hear them.

"_Kaze-yokai_, are you coming or not?" And now Fujin wanted to talk to her again! Of course!

"No." There was sunlight shining on her back, crumbled stones making up an unstable ceiling over her head like the cave walls on either side of her. Only the floor was sound, made of living stone that had been rent by Boreas' winds when he sent the Demon Lord head-first through the side of the mountain. If there had been a proper crater with the impact it had been obscured and lost by the collapsing rock. Fate and the remaining pressure from the attack were the only reasons why there was a cave at all that led down to where Sesshoumaru was sealed.

Sealed. _Him_. How was that even possible?

"Hermes, give my regards to Zeus, along with my thanks that he honoured my request."

"Boreas and Notus had been causing a lot of problems before you took care of them, if not for the Maelstrom I don't think my lord would have let you just come in and take all the credit for the battle." _Hermes_, some idiot with a bowl on his head and wings on his ankles, a god who couldn't even fly on his own and needed stupid shoes to make himself airborne!

"I wish Zeus had acted sooner and not let it get this bad, I should never have had to travel so far to clean up this mess." She closed her eyes as the Wind God's youthful voice trailed down the cave, carried intentionally to her on the breeze along with every other word of their conversation. He was tormenting her, especially by wearing Hakudoshi's face like that.

She heard something disturb the gods but didn't look up, her arms wrapped around her knees, bare feet braced on the slanted rock and watching the glowing mound of ice that had anchored itself to the core of the mountain.

"Artemis?"

"I came to see the demon."

Sesshoumaru's limbs were spread just so, the ice frosted enough over his left side so that it was impossible to see the tension in his clawed fingers, or the way they'd been contorted by the impaling ice. With the blood wiped off his face he looked like he was sleeping, his hair tossed about and wild like it was still caught in some sort of swirling wind or vortex. Kagura knew he had been in agony, but now she could trick herself into saying he was peaceful.

"_Kaze-yokai _-_?_" Damn it-

"_I am not leaving without him!_" Jumping to her feet as he called her _again_, Kagura let a blast of air whoosh out of the cave and send a cloud of dust flying through the air at the god and his stupid bowl-wearing vassal. And that _'Artemis'_ person too, whoever that was!

Fujin had been calling her _over _and _over_ and _over_ again since his true form, a great and powerful dragon, had filled the sky and dispelled every gust, eddy and current that had made up the Kamikaze. He'd called the spirits from the storm up into him, borrowing their energy in a way Kagura had never seen done before he vanquished the god they called _Boreas_.

She'd refused to join him, too newly restored to consciousness and life, too keenly aware of the similarities between Fujin's _borrowing_ and Naraku's _taking. _So what if Fujin truly had restored every spirit and sprite and ghost back to their fully conscious state after the battle was won? She'd stayed down here, stubborn and unmoving, until he'd actually shaved off a portion of the mountain to expose this narrow shaft of air that led to the Demon Lord's body.

And she was still sitting here- except that she jumped up and shouted at him. But she was still down here! And he was still up there, calling every god and demon in this forsaken place to him so they could chat and gossip about whatever inane subject crossed their mind. And he kept _calling_ her.

"You should be more respectful, demon." Huh? Who the hell was _this?_

"And you should mind your own business!" Kagura had turned to sit down again, but now she straightened up and wheeled back around at the voice. It belonged to a woman, a goddess- Artemis? She didn't sound like Hermes.

Weren't all deities supposed to be marvellously beautiful? This one was plain and surprisingly thick in body, curves accentuated by the bulky, tangled nature of her outfit. It was a robe made of no more than one or two pieces of deep blue cloth, a thick belt of midnight blue cinching her waist as silver beads offered just a small taste of decoration. The robe was extremely short by the wind demon's standards: only coming down to the deity's knees like she'd seen one or two of Fujin's foreign cohorts wearing, but unlike the men the chest and shoulder area were more extensively covered. Her hair was a copper colour, braided around her head like a crown and yet still frizzy and wild despite that. The goddess was holding a short wooden bow decorated with silver and vines, but Kagura couldn't see any arrows.

"Fujin is taking your kind back home, that means you should go with him." Impudent creature, so what if she was some goddess! Her green eyes were haughty in a way that made Kagura want to slap her, an arrogant twist to the lips making her look far too much like Naraku.

"East, right?" Kagura answered bitterly, turning her back to the goddess now with her arms folded stiffly. She was looking at Sesshoumaru, but really not. "I'm sure it won't be hard to find all on my own then, thank you."

"Fujin says the demon won't wake up for many years." So what! ?

"Then I'll wait."

"Fine." Stupid goddess. "But when he wakes up he won't go home with you." Excuse me? "He'll choose to stay here with me, I just know it."

"Who the hell do you think you are! ?" Kagura shouted, tense and trying not to let her body shake with the sudden flood of hot anger surging through her blood. Her heart was beginning to ram in her chest, demanding violence before it burst. Her vision didn't feel quite right, heat surrounding her eyes as she looked over her shoulder and found the goddess's appearance stained red. It wasn't that the woman was bleeding- even the sky and sun-rays behind her bore the same crimson tint.

"My name is Artemis, goddess of the hunt." The woman answered smugly, that cruel twist on her lips still there as she seemed to bask in her own notions of greatness. _Puh!_ That was sunlight, not divinity you stupid witch! "Tell me what his name is, he's simply exquisite..." Simply _what! ?_

"You have no idea who or _what_ you're dealing with." She answered spitefully, watching the goddess' face contort with disgust.

"Silence, demon." This huntress had green eyes, like pine needles and frost, and she hooked the bow over her shoulder before folding her bare arms sternly over her wide chest. But as she spoke up, the Goddess' eyes were pulled back to the ice. "When he wakes up my pack will attend to all of his needs. I've seen Dog Demons before, but this one will father the most spectacular breed of-"

"_He is not a hunting dog!_" Kagura had not _meant_ to shriek the words, it just came out that way. Still, the copper-haired woman just turned her nose up.

"He's still a dog, and all dogs hunt." So much arrogance! Goddess? _This?_ Kagura would send her flying right over the next-

"Ladies! Ladies!" A swirling gust of wind whipped itself up in the narrow space between the two women, Hakudoshi forming until Kagura remembered that it was just the wretched form that Fujin admired. The child had his hands up between them like he could hold them apart if they moved, his eyes shut and head tilted back so his voice was strong and clear for their convenience. That conniving smile he wore was too much like her brother's. "Why don't we let the good general sleep for a few years and pick this up then? No sense arguing over a piece of ice, is there?"

"_Fine._" Kagura answered, folding her arms stiffly and turning away from the divine pair- gods! What a joke!

"No, not _fine."_ And that _irritating _little- "Fujin, wake him up."

"Eh, no. I don't think I will..." The god's reply was lack-lustre, Kagura tempted to clap her hands over her ears just to shut out the stupid voices.

"Why not? If you killed Boreas then why can't you break the ice?"

"I didn't say I can't, I said I won't." But Kagura made herself pay attention, and had enough self-control not to try blasting them both out of the cave. Closing her red eyes and rubbing the side of her head with two fingertips, she was trying to counter her forming headache. The gods squabbled a bit more, Fujin repeating his earlier words to Hermes about Sesshoumaru disregarding some sort of order or set of rules he had been given. He was going to let the dog general get himself out of his own mess.

"If I call my father then-" A change overcame the god as the huntress made what sounded an awful lot like a threat.

"I do not answer to you, girl, I do not answer to your king." Kagura turned as she felt the air begin to pull and twist violently around the white-haired child, his mouth open and speaking with layers of voices, several different winds speaking through him. "I am a Kami of the Buddha, you are a Spirit of Olympus: leave this place, before I send you the way of the North Wind."

After that, spurned and angry, the goddess _did_ leave. Kagura found herself braced against the cave wall waiting for the energy let loose by Fujin to calm itself down and dissipate into the air. He wasn't facing her, his several dozen white braids suspended in the air by his ambient power as he watched Artemis vanish through the cave mouth. The god's multi-coloured eyes watched the sun's progression against the white sky outside before he finally settled down.

The god sighed.

"Sit, _kaze-yokai._" She didn't move, not yet. "I will not harm you, not after everything, not with everything to come." Slowly, uneasily, Kagura made herself slide down the wall until she was seated as the god requested, her hips slanted to compensate for the angle of the cave floor, a few protruding rocks from the wall gouging her shoulders and back.

When Hakudoshi turned around with calm violet eyes, she blinked and watched him cross his ankles and sit facing the frozen Demon Lord. His child-like face looked tired, an expression she couldn't imagine her real brother ever wearing.

"...I underestimated him." Fujin said, sounding like a child admitting to some minor wrong. Looking between the god and the demon, Kagura said nothing and just watched the deity's eyes move over Sesshoumaru's suspended form. "Omnipotence grows boring, I could have simply read his heart in the beginning and known not to bring him into all of this, but I wanted to see how far his pride would take him before it broke." She didn't understand, not really, and watching Fujin grab his ankles and rock back and forth idly didn't help clear her mind.

"You were trying to humble him?" She mumbled the question because she wasn't sure if it was the right one or not. But Fujin just nodded absently, he tilting his head to the side.

"Mhmm... But I miscalculated. I thought it was pride because that was what he thought, so we were both fooled." Fooled by what? "I underestimated how deeply he wanted to succeed, and I don't think he knew how badly he wanted it either until he spoke to you." So, that time in the meadow? That moment between sleeping and waking, where she'd felt something come together...

Fujin was watching her with yellow eyes now, not the same pure gold as the Demon Lord's, but still captivating in their own way. The god looked like he was pondering something, neither of them speaking for a long while until Fujin broke the silence and looked back at Sesshoumaru.

"I hadn't understood what the heavens were talking about when they said that the westernmost _Inu-daiyokai_ had surpassed his father. The Great General took over two millenia before his focus finally shifted from supreme power and perfection to compassion and the virtues of life, so to think that his son would mature in less than half that time seemed ludicrous to me." A coy smile crossed the god's lips, and then he shook his white head slowly, looking down at where the ice and stone met in front of him. "I was convinced that sending him to speak with you would only damage your recovery, that he had the potential to restore your life, but wasn't mature enough yet to handle that responsibility." Sesshoumaru, _immature?_

"...One hundred years." How did she know that?

"That was how long I thought he still needed to grow." So it hadn't been for the benefit of her spirit, spending so many years asleep...? "No- _well_... You needed time, yes, a few years, but you could have forgone even that if he had been capable of encouraging and protecting you." But he _had_ been... "Yes, which is why I underestimated him. Between his inaction and his behaviour, I didn't think he would be able to compromise with his pride."

"It was only five years." She said the words softly, no longer adhered to the wall from fear and an awareness of the god's power, knees up and arms curled around them even though she was still slanted down. "Just five for me. How long will this...?" She was looking at the ice now, from the left where there were only frosted prisms coating the one side of his suspended body, the rest of it clear so he could actually be seen. It was almost beautiful, almost.

"His body is in agony." Kagura shut her eyes slowly, letting her head hang forward a little bit but not far enough to place her forehead on her knees. "For a mortal I'm impressed that he actually managed to seal himself to sleep."

"_Fujin._"

"He will recover, but it will be slow. You should consider returning home with us while he-"

"No." She was not leaving without him, she was not going to run away home and leave him here in this strange land with its arrogant gods. At least Fujin could acknowledge when he was wrong, that huntress wanted to _breed_ the Demon Lord...

"This is not the same as the seal on his brother, or his father's rival." Fujin was explaining things to her in clear voice, but not answering her. He was speaking down to her by breaking things apart, but Kagura really didn't care so long as he actually addressed her question in the end. How long would he be like this? "He is in control of when he awakens, and he will be in no hurry to come out of his dreams." Just answer her: how long? "He knows the kind of pain that he'll have to go through to get out of the ice, so you'll have to wait until he's confident that he can endure it and-"

"Damn yourself, Fujin- _how long! ?_"

"I don't know!" The god spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders, but his answer was defensive, irritated. Just not enough to lash out at her like he had at Artemis- the two of them had bickered a bit before that point anyways. Still, when she looked at him Hakudoshi's face was twisted around sourly, his red eyes showing frustration.

"If I went back on my word then he could be out today. If you come home and fetch his brother here, then a year, maybe two, depending on how fast you can travel: a single _kaze no kizu_, one wind-scar, and he'd be free." Bring Inuyasha here? Was this god insane? "If you want me to guess, then on his own I say a hundred years, maybe a little bit less. If you want me to _know_, then no, I can't answer."

"You like that number." A century, Fujin seemed very fond of gauging things in centuries.

"It's a good number for your kind." But it was too long, it just sounded like far, far too long. "Now I'm only going to ask you one more time, Kagura: are you coming home with the rest of us, or are you not?" Kagura had her eyes closed again, this time with one hand clasped over them in-case she should do something foolish like start to cry. "Kagura."

"Stay." It wasn't a hard decision, it was a hard reality. "I'm staying." She shouldn't have woken up to find Sesshoumaru, of all people, trapped inside of a mountain, wrapped up in ice. "I will not leave without him." Why had he come all the way here? Ownership, he'd said something of it when she'd seen him, in the meadow, in that dream. He'd stood before her in pain but with too much pride to acknowledge it, his control fraying and falling to pieces by the time he kissed her. Sesshoumaru had screamed at her after that, he'd screamed and made a noise that made her think of a wounded animal, one that was lashing out because it didn't know what else to do before it died. It... it had been so _wrong_ to witness that, to see him brought down and defeated. This was the Demon Lord who had calmly lost his own left arm in battle, to witness him thrashing and whining in the dark, speaking broken words to himself as fear brought on a terrible, short-lived fever... She shouldn't have woken up to find Sesshoumaru, of all people, experiencing something like that.

Silence. Silence and darkness for a long time, the sun had set and the air had begun to cool before she heard Fujin move and stand up. The child's bare feet scraped against the coarse stone before Kagura felt a touch on her shoulder: a small hand.

"Good luck." She looked up and hated that her skin felt hot, wetness clinging to her eyelashes. She didn't see Fujin's face, just a metal piece held in his other hand- part of a sword? He offered the scrap piece to her and she... Kagura recognized that blade...

'_Tenseiga...?'_

Wrapping her fingers around the dull edge, Kagura hooked her arms around her knees and set her forehead down so she could try and rest. She heard Fujin leave, felt the wind outside the cave rise up from a constant presence to a distinct moan and howl... Thousands upon thousands of spirits, demons, elementals, sprites, fairies, and demi-gods were drawn up into the swirling air... and left.

Now she was alone...

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><p><strong>Hardest. Chapter. Ever.<strong>

**But you wanna know what I love about big fandoms like this one? Combing through people's favourites lists and picking up stuff to read. I'd make recommendations here, but the 10 people in the Alerts column for this story have fairly similar taste. I swear I've read more fanfiction before and after my trip than I have in the last four years xD**


	11. Patient Growth

**What's Left Of Me, Iris.**

**The problem with any writing project is the threat of getting bored half way through. Thankfully, RtW is complete, so that's not an issue for this story, but the sequel? Bleh. I'm right at a point where there're like 2-3 chapters of content I just don't wanna do, but it's the bridging stuff before the fun part. But I figure, I wrote all the way to chapter 19 before going back and writing 10 here, and that turned out alright, right?**

**Inappropriate ranting here 'cause there's no point putting it in an AN that's a few months from publication =P**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Patient Growth

It was a year before she was able to leave the cave for more than a few hours, to give up her endless vigil and wander far enough from the mountain to reach the nearest human settlement. Kagura honestly couldn't pry herself away before then: being free meant she had the choice of whether or not to leave him, and she chose not to. So it was a year before she realized how slowly he was recovering in slumber, and how agonizing this wait was truly going to be.

She didn't make a habit of leaving very often, even after the second year gave way to the third. Without language to communicate with or anything worth bartering to the humans, she stole into the boundaries of the small village at night and simply took away what she wanted. It was better not to be seen by the humans here, she was too strange to them: they looked like their old gods with curly hair and large, wide eyes, olive skin and an awkward language. She had tried approaching a child once or twice, but their response warned her from continuing with that strategy: they didn't like being near her. They weren't like Rin or Kohaku, or the other young humans Kagura had known back home. True, they were similar in the way all human children are the same, but still much too different.

Food wasn't an issue, but things like blankets, new clothes, and eventually the materials to make a new fan were all carried away. She fixed the edges and entrance to the cave, stabilized them and smoothed the stones with mortar she watched the human men mix and use to build their homes. This place wasn't plagued so badly by earthquakes and typhoons: the humans made their homes solid because there was no fear of them falling over and needing be put back together. The weather was also too cold and extreme sometimes, paper would have been useless as a building material- if there was any to be had at all.

No paper, no rice, or at least not a lot. It was good that she only needed to feed rarely, and that the forest groves and cultivated orchards provided her with sustenance. Eating, she realized, had become a luxury to her now as it was for many other demons and elementals. Naraku had always tormented her with hunger but never allowed her to eat- or when she did consume food, it never satisfied. Now she knew it would be different, even if she still found human food unpalatable.

Time passed very slowly, but very fast at the same time. By her fourth year she would spend most of her hours out flying on the winds near the mountain and beyond, and the time she had spent bound to the cave entrance didn't _feel_ like it had lasted so long. She adjusted carefully to the changes that had come with her new life- her restored one. The way her heart beat, how her skin flushed, how she responded to the seasons and the cycles of the moon. Kagura wasn't sure what it would have been like to suddenly find herself alive and then under scrutiny from people around her: would she have been able to adjust if Jaken had been a constant nuisance? Would she have had time to think and understand what her freedom really meant if she'd had to follow the Demon Lord constantly to avoid being left behind? So there was, maybe, some good that came from having to wait, she just wished the waiting wasn't so _long..._

Sometimes, in the woods near the mountain, she would catch a glimpse of a heavenly hunting dog, or watch a frighten stag suddenly leap off and away as the unseen huntress prowled too close for Kagura's comfort. It was desperately hard to avoid harming any of the curious mutts or deer that would irritate the goddess, but getting into a fight with Artemis would only get her killed: Kagura wasn't stupid. She had learned slowly, through observing the humans and their devotions, that the gods of this land were no longer under stable or even conscious worship, they'd been replaced. But that didn't mean they weren't still a threat to her.

Sesshoumaru was a Demon Lord, he was the one responsible for slaying Naraku: that put him in a category all his own, several steps above her. It was his right and position to challenge gods, not hers...

She just had a passionate hated for the bitch, and patiently awaited the joyous day when the virgin goddess was gored by one of her prey. Sadly though, that news never reached her because it just refused to happen. In fact, after five years in Thrace, Artemis had become bold enough to regularly leave the forest and walk all the way up to the lip of the cave, where she always found a prickly Kagura standing guard.

"You are selfish, demon."

"_Excuse me?_" Just because she couldn't pick a fight with Artemis didn't _mean_ she had to be nice.

"Selfish." The goddess' appearance hadn't changed in five years, but Kagura's has been forced to. There were only so many alterations she could make to Greek clothing to make it more suitable for herself, and with such limited skill when it came to mending and stitching, her magenta kimono had finally been laid to rest. Its ability to restore itself had come from Naraku, and he was dead.

One of her under-layers served as the final one now, which had made her feel bare until she found a way to craft a terribly plain kosode out of several stolen lengths of cloth. It was white and patternless wool, but hidden under the blue, floral-patterned kimono which had previously played second string to her magenta one, she could handle it. She still wore her hair the same though, and her green earrings: this land wasn't going to corrupt her.

"_Selfish_, says the one looking for a _rare breed._" Contempt laced the words, but she was merely repeating what Artemis had said years ago. The goddess bristled.

"You refuse to help him so you can take all the credit when he wakes up, it's disgusting."

"If you're talking about bringing the Half-breed into things, you don't _know_ Lord Sesshoumaru." She answered, but Artemis wouldn't let her continue.

"They are _brothers._"

"No they're _not._" Rebuking the Goddess again, she wanted the huntress to go _away_, she had no place here and after five years this discussion was old. "If you go to Inuyasha, then yes, the fool will probably come. But he'll know better than to expect to use his Tetseiga on the Demon Lord and then escape unscathed, let alone alive." She conveniently left out the fact that Inuyasha had, technically, bettered his brother more than once in combat. Kagura wasn't quite sure how she knew that so exactly, but wasn't about to share such a secret with Artemis.

"So you're worried about the brother then." Stop calling him that!

"I'm worried about his _pride_ you stupid-!" She bit off the insult and stabbed her lip with one sharp tooth, tasting some of her own blood as Kagura tried to keep the winds curled around her fingers from winning out and striking the foolish deity. Artemis' green eyes were on her like the sight of her bow, the weapon held in a resting position against the standing goddess' legs, but that could be easily changed.

"His pride!" She continued, leaving the insult out of things and taking her anger out on the absent Half-breed instead. "If his younger, mixed-breed, _bastard_ half-brother comes all the way around the world and _rescues him_, he'll either destroy your precious Thracian highlands or you'll have to kill him to make him stop!" Did this goddess get it yet? Kagura already knew the answer: no. Artemis was stubborn, some sort of divine princess, a bastard daughter of their supreme lightning god.

"When I convince him to stay here-" Subject change, but Kagura knew the drill with this woman.

"You would _never_ convince him!" Sesshoumaru as a goddess' hunting dog? Her little tracker and go-fetch-'em mutt? Kagura had laughed at the idea before, but sometimes, like right now, she just wanted to reach into her own skull and throttle her inner eye for daring to picture it. It made her skin crawl, the idea that Demon Lord _Sesshoumaru _could ever, _would ever_, simper and bow and obey a goddess. That he would ever sit at her feet like the stupid dogs that constantly followed Artemis around. Disgusting!

"You are selfish." The stupid divine princess accused again, falling back on the old line and causing Kagura to throw her hands into the air. This discussion was over and would go no further than any other they'd ever had.

The Huntress never did, thank Fujin, ever appear with the Half-breed in tow. Kagura was positive it was really thanks to Fujin too: he had been very clear that Sesshoumaru was _not_ a victim to be rescued by him or any under his power, and Inuyasha would _definitely_ be considered the Wind God's divine territory. Yes, Fujin had told Kagura that _she_ could return home and fetch the mutt here, but Kagura was even closer to the Wind God than either of the brothers, so that put her in a completely different position than Artemis. She refused to bring Inuyasha into things, and Fujin refused to allow the Greeks to interfere, so somehow all of these spiteful intentions were actually a gift to the Demon Lord. Sesshoumaru was away from his lands and wards, yes, Kagura understood that, but he would restore himself and not be rescued by his stupid brother or a pantheon of bleeding hearts!

But as the years slipped by and she finished adjusting to her new skin, her different rhythms, and her altered needs, Kagura had a lot of time on her hands. And without Artemis' rare and unwelcome visits, she was alone. She had never been completely on her own like this before, and her mind, after the solitude started to wear thing, started wandering its way way back to her _'family'._

Naraku's other incarnations. She knew that they were dead, all of them. Some had died before her, but Akago the infant, Byakuya... Kanna. Of all the demons she had lived alongside, the only one she actually missed was her sister.

Kagura had usually been considered to be the eldest of her siblings, with a minor, mistaken nod to Byakuya in spite of his place as the youngest. In truth, the distinction as first incarnation had belonged to the void, not the wind. Kanna had lacked aura, scent, and expression, but Kagura had always wondered if there wasn't a little more personality in the little mirror girl than Naraku had given her credit for. She didn't know how the glass doll had died however, and her mind formed numerous, horrific scenarios to torment her once she was finished dealing with herself.

There were a lot of nightmares anyways during this time: Kanna, Naraku, Sesshoumaru, this strange land... Too many attempts at sleep had ended with her waking up clutching her chest, searching for her heart. Too many nights were spent just flying on the wind, telling herself that this strange life was hers, and that she was free to live it how she willed. But slowly, hesitantly, the dreams started to leave her alone. Time was powerful, and after a while if she dreamt of Kanna then her sister was alive and with her amongst flowers. If she thought of Naraku then it was just to rejoice over his death. And if she dreamt of the Demon Lord...

After six years of waiting, tending, training, and living almost completely alone, Kagura had tried to think of what his absence really meant for the Western Lands. She had thought of it, on and off, over the years, but now it began to consume her mind. How long would loyal servants remain loyal? She never included the toad in her musings: Jaken would simper and pine for Sesshoumaru's return even if the Demon Lord slept for a _thousand_ years, never-mind a measly hundred. But what about the others? What exactly did the Lord of the Western Lands _do?_

Naraku had both flirted with and violated the boundaries of the Western Lands during his spiteful existence, that was why Sesshoumaru had been constantly watching and aware of her creator's movements. Terrorizing populations of humans and demons alike, blighting crops and desecrating sacred spaces, these were things, she knew, that had something to do with what the Demon Lord dealt with on a daily basis. That was why he had been incessantly travelling and moving about for the duration of Naraku's terrorizing reign. The Inu no Taishou had maintained a palace, so Sesshoumaru had probably inherited that upon his father's death along with the titles and Tenseiga. Demon Lords had to be powerful, incredibly so, which meant that he must also be required to fight in order to fulfill his duties.

This was what worried her. If he was here, asleep, then after seven years she wanted to know what sort of state his lands were in. After eight years, she wanted to know if she was really doing the right thing, defending his pride instead of concerning herself with his obligations. How long had he told his estate he would be gone before he had gotten himself mixed in with gods and wind spirits..?

Nine years after she started guarding his tomb, Kagura was sitting in front of him wishing she could ask her questions. After nine years she had carved out stairs into the slanted plane of the tunnel, and to keep herself busy and entertained she had smoothed the walls with plaster and by simply chipping down and smoothing the boulders and living rock. It made it more tolerable to watch him remain trapped inside that horrible berg of blue ice: he didn't look like a defeated opponent after the cave was formed into something reminiscent of a shrine.

The ice had stopped expanding as soon as Boreas died that night, but remained at least a foot thick in its thinnest stretch over his face, upwards of four or five around his legs and left arm- where the freezing had begun. She couldn't get too close for fear of touching the ice by accident, but could see him clearly thanks to the glow of his aura.

After so many years spent sitting on these steps looking at him, she'd memorized every detail- from the tears and cracks in his armour, to the low murmur that had begun to return to Bakusaiga after a few years of deep rest. She'd brought the broken end of the Tenseiga into the tomb a long time ago. It was the only time she had come close to touching him: she'd set the blade on the ice and let it be consumed. She had been disappointed when the berg had responded that way, active and dangerous instead of inert and safe to touch. Did it mean he still in pain?

The only thing about his appearance that she didn't like was the rod tucked into his belt under his right arm. She hated looking at it, she lamented it time and again, yelled and screamed and carried on in frustration about it, but nothing helped. The one thing that _could_ have melted the ice, that could have freed him without turning to Fujin or Inuyasha- could maybe have even prevented him from being frozen in the first place! was that horrible rod. The fire of the East Wind could have stopped the North Wind's ice from consuming him, but he hadn't thought of it in the meadow, and he hadn't told her before he fell asleep, and it had been too late by the time Fujin showed up.

She could have saved him with that, and then at least Kagura was someone, unlike Inuyasha, who Sesshoumaru could have killed without any great danger to himself for damaging his pride like that. She could have done it if she'd known, but after ten years she'd given up on using her winds to attack that side of his body, surrendered the possibility that he could be restored by anything other than his own perseverance and determination.

Ten years. That meant she only had... maybe another ninety to go, maybe a little more or less, depending on how well or poorly he fared.

"Ten years, Lord Sesshoumaru." Kagura didn't speak to him often, she made a point of not fooling herself into thinking he could hear her. He wasn't there, he wasn't here, he was within himself buried so far that no sensation would reach him until he was ready to come out. It was sunset outside, the dark amber light shining down the cave and striking her back where she was seated on one of the steps near the bottom, arms wrapped around her knees. "You would hate this land if you could see it. When you wake up I'm going to give you hell for making me wait here."

She was tired, not of this- although that was a bit of a lie, she certainly didn't _like_ playing guardian – but just tired today. Kagura didn't know the _exact_ date, so whether it was actually today, or yesterday, or a week from now when she should have said ten years, it didn't matter. She was tired because Artemis had harassed her yet again, a semi-annual occurrence that she dreaded but that helped keep time with so little outside contact.

Kagura hated knowing how much of the local language she'd picked up in ten years. She despised how, very rarely, she was sought out either by a human looking to kill her, or someone looking for help from the wind spirit who lived in the mountains. She only fulfilled the requests for help because they staved off the hunters: the very strange monks with their odd books and unique prayers. She didn't like dealing with their magic, and had decided that if she was going to live here for a century, she'd cultivate the kind of reputation that made humans leave her _alone_, not go campaigning through the highlands trying to kill her.

Besides, how hard was it to find a lost person wandering in the mountains? Or fly for a day and negotiate or simply destroy a lesser wind demon harassing a fishing boat or field? It was better than just sitting here, in this tomb, on these steps, waiting for Sesshoumaru to not wake up...

At least it was until, in the eleventh year, he woke up.

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><p><strong>Alrighty then! Next chapter on Thursday, and we finally get a reunion!<strong>


	12. My Mountain

**Iris, Brothers in Arms, What's Left of Me, Stole.**

**It's my story and I'll post if I want to~ Slow chapters like last one tend to work out best when reading the story as a whole, not when you're waiting on updates, so what the heck? I'm updating again. I'll probably update again on Friday too, but who knows? I'm getting ready to start working, and the sequel project is, as of yesterday, on its fourth draft, so I need some stress-relief xD**

**Title is totally an in-joke with my family that I don't expect anyone to get, but it fits the chapter even without the background.**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

_My_ Mountain

These men didn't speak the language she'd learned to associate with the humans and spirits of Thrace, they were invaders from the south and east. Their presence only highlighted for Kagura just how far west she was that they bore no resemblance to any human civilization she'd ever encountered.

"_Stop babbling!"_ She shrieked, spinning once in the air and aware of the low ceiling of the cave as she whipped her fan around and unleashed a blade of wind that screamed up the steps. Finally! She killed the last fighter- a man armed with a spear that had tried to cut through her arm but been foiled as she vanished and reappeared within the wind. She took his head off and let his body bleed out on the tomb steps, turning on his stupid monk friend: the last of their little hunting party.

They didn't call them _monks_ here, but Kagura forgot the word right now as the man babbled incessantly, flipping through his wood-bound velum book. It was something else that she wasn't used to seeing; these large manuscripts that burned her hands like monk seals, talismans that were read out loud instead of applied. She couldn't afford to remove the monk's head: she'd need something bare of those horrible crosses and star-bursts in order to drag his body out after he was dead.

"Get back here!" Did she speak her mother tongue or the new language of this hateful place? She didn't know, didn't care, but as the monk went fleeing down the cave steps she snarled and followed. Her body merged with the wind and sped right past him, intentionally billowing out with a gust that she hoped would send him crashing down the stone steps and snap several important bones. Instead, when she reformed on the small smooth platform just in front of the slumbering Dog General, the monk was still on his feet and screaming something incomprehensible in fear.

Of course he was afraid, as soon as she transformed she doused the torches down here. If he could see anything at all, it would be Sesshoumaru's ominous glow behind her, and whatever light her crimson eyes were giving off.

Now, deliberately, in Greek:

"Leave this place now, and I _may_ not kill you." More babbling, nonsensical to her ears and comprised of sounds she had no interest or patience to learn.

With both hands wrapped around the heavy tome, the human abruptly thrust the manuscript at her chest, Kagura not expecting this as a sudden burst of energy ripped from the pages and shoved her back. It was a botched spell that failed to cause her any harm, but maybe it did something worse.

Her back hit the ice, and the wind witch felt herself go stiff and still, acting only to release the winds curled around her hand and slice the pathetic little monk to pieces in front of her. He wasn't her problem anymore after that, but the book was beginning to glow and howl, letting off an energy signature she'd felt a few times before, but never this close or with the tome resting in her arms. It felt heavy and wouldn't let her move, even when she kicked her feet against the ice and struggled to get away- damn it! Damn it! Damn it! If the ice spread to her then she_-!_

A loud cracking sound behind her startled the wind demon enough that she managed to fling the awful book out of her arms and onto the ground. Gold light was spilling from the thick pages, as she felt the wind circle around and help her up. Kagura braced her bare feet against the ice and pushed herself off of the berg, soaring over the wretched book and ripping it apart with several fast-moving blasts of air. The light stopped once the spine was properly shredded, the wooden pieces flying off as the velum warped. She'd burn the pieces later, but right now-

"_Sesshoumaru! ?_" She landed on the steps and spun around to see him. Cracks had formed and begun to rip the ice apart, a deep pulse radiating from the centre where a growing white light had consumed the inside. The only thing she could see for sure were two red rays of light pouring from his opened eyes.

Snapping her fan open again, Kagura gave several repeated slashes with the poorly crafted weapon and let her much-improved skill with the wind make up for the defects in the materials. She had tried to use wind blades to cut away they ice before, at moments of desperation or simple frustration as the years passed, but this was the only time she had any real reason to expect it would help- and it did.

Her wind collided with the cracks and helped force the gaps wider, lifting and pulling on shards of the lifeless blue crystal until one clawed hand ripped itself free- laced in green energy. There was a terrible sound, and she noticed now that the entire mountain was moving: grit and sand spilling from the reinforced roof and suddenly making her nervous.

He was grasping for something but Kagura wasn't stupid enough to rush down to him, listening as the ice split and broke, the entire cave beginning to warp and break down now as she was aware of the Demon Lord thrashing madly inside his prison. When his face broke through his eyes were crimson, fangs sharp and protruding from his gums as he snapped and snarled trying to release the rest of his body. He was gasping heavily, the air hissing and bubbling with spittle as it hissed through his teeth.

"_You!"_ Between the accusing word and his terrifying face, Kagura felt herself take a step back. He must have been in an extraordinary amount of pain still, and she didn't know what she was supposed to do now in order to help. Blue and green energy was crackling around him, Tenseiga and Bakusaiga screaming at his side as both blades seemed to properly wake up for the first time in years. He looked positively terrifying, but somehow nothing like himself as he continued to flail and fight with his prone body. "_YOU!_"

"I get it!" Gripping her clumsy fan between her hands and pressing it shut, Kagura turned and quickly fled up the stairs, away from him, his agony, and his temper. Away, she wanted away from him when he was like this, not about to stand right on the edge of the ice when he that brutal, murderous look about him. Forget kisses and longing for a moment, he was a wounded Demon Lord- he'd kill her right now and not even regret it afterwards. Just before she left Kagura waved one hand and let the wind pick up the shattered book. She didn't want him to step on it and be become further enraged when the thing tried burning him!

"_What_ are you doing out here?" Huh? No, not today!

Shutting her eyes tight as she came up into the daylight, Kagura couldn't growl, but she still felt the wind pick up and tug at her clothes. Her element was trying to restrain her, to hold her back as fear was burned away by intense hatred: today, the copper-haired huntress was here _today?_ And she didn't just walk up to the plateau either, no, she came _charging_ up the mountainside in her blue tunic. Two of Artemis' faithful bitches were running at her heels too, tongues lolling and black and white tails wagging furiously back and forth. Kagura wanted to slaughter all three of them for looking so elated.

"Will you just go away?" Kagura snapped, shoving a hand down on her hip and tucking her fan into her belt. Speaking of belts- she glanced back down the stairs, still able to clearly hear his struggling gasps and snarls. She hadn't thought of the East Wind's rod until right now, but the noises and vibrations puncturing the air and rock warned her from going back down. He didn't want anyone to see him right now: the light from his demonic aura was visible all the way up here, and he wouldn't hesitate to use it like a weapon.

At least the rod itself wasn't urgent. It might have helped him, but Kagura wouldn't risk approaching him and didn't need it for herself. She'd touched the ice, yes, but she already knew it hadn't spread to her. She would be fine as soon as the huntress could be turned around and sent back down into the forests, she'd be fine as soon as he stopped sounding like he was _dying..._

"How dare you abandon him alone down there!" The goddess shouted, breaking Kagura's concentration and causing the elemental's eyes to try burrowing through the huntress' green ones. At least, _at least_ Artemis lacked any elemental affinity, or a beast form, Kagura taking hold of her anger and using it to give herself enough presence and grace to merely check her nails in the sunlight. Every muscle in her hand and arm was tensed up, but trying not to _look_ tense, and doing their best not to shake or tremble either. She wouldn't give Artemis the satisfaction of seeing her frazzled.

"Explain yourself, Witch!"

"It's the same answer I always give." She answered in a bored tone, hackles rising as the cave rumbled again and a few pebbles came skipping down the mountainside in response. She'd kill him, or maybe just complain vocally, if he caused a slide. "If he wants someone to help him, which I can swear he never will, he'll call."

What did this goddess care anyways? She was still just thinking in terms of making Sesshoumaru her pet. Did she expect Kagura to go back down and give the poor, tired Demon Lord a belly rub? Should she scratch him behind the ear until he rolled onto his back and started kicking his leg like a puppy? Maybe the idea had appeal when you had nothing to do to entertain yourself all day and night, but right now it made Kagura throw up a _tinsy_ bit in the back of her mouth.

"Heartless bitch!" Hah! Not anymore, Artemis! "Quickly you two, go down to him." The bitches had been waiting for their mistress's command, standing at her heels and growling ineffectively at the wind witch. Now they both perked their ears up and chased one another down at a full-on sprint to get into the cave.

Kagura moved away from the cave mouth, leaning against the stone wall of the small abode she'd constructed for herself. It was only two walls and a slanted roof, just someplace to store her meagre belongings and give her protection from the cold or sun. She was plucking stray threads off her sleeve as she stood there, focused both on keeping her panic from showing through, and on following his condition. There was a flare and waver in Sesshoumaru's aura as the bitches reached him... then:

"...? _NO!_"

The goddess screamed just before there was a burst of poison gas and an eruption of infuriated demonic energy. It reminded her of the monk's wind-tunnel, just set in reverse as the diced up _pieces_ of Artemis' dogs were ejected from the cave mouth. Kagura hid her disgust behind her fan, watching as the goddess screamed and fell to her knees, broken as she touched the lifeless corpses.

"_KAGURA!"_ ...He actually called her name?

"Excuse me, honourable guest, but I must go and attend to Lord Sesshoumaru." Collapsing her fan again quickly, Kagura clasped her hands and gave a proper and respectable bow- except it was neither proper nor respectful. She kicked a lifeless piece of dog out of her way as she moved back over to the cave entrance, except-

_'Shit- he's still fast.' -_he beat her to the top of the stairs, and Kagura kept her fan up over her mouth and nose because she wasn't sure what her face was doing right now. He'd called her- first just screaming at her and then actually using her name. And now he made himself move? In his condition?

She didn't like looking at him like this, because he didn't look like himself. It had taken Sesshoumaru years to build up enough energy to free himself from the ice and rid his body of the pervasive frost that had caused him so much pain. This meant, obviously, that none of that energy had been spared to actually _heal_ any of the damage.

His long, perfect silver hair was bedraggled and stained with blood from his scalp- she assumed just by looking at him that he'd surrendered at least a few locks and a considerable amount of skin to the ice in his frenzy to escape. His eyes were a brilliant red with no visible pupils that she could see, the marks on his cheeks jagged like broken glass as his jaw was noticeably distended- part-way through his transformation. His claws were longer than normal, and oozing green toxins into the air even though he wasn't actively attacking anything. If she looked where his hand was gripping the edge of the cave mouth, he was already wearing finger holes into the rock.

As for the rest of him, his clothing was in a horrible state after his skin had been shredded by the ice- and most of those welts were either still open and bleeding along his chest and arms, or were just a bright pink. The ice had been possessive of his body, even his legs were partially exposed through his torn pants, holes pocketing his black boots. His armour had been split cleanly in two across the chest, and the pauldron was missing. His fur was shredded and bloody, hanging limp around his arm where it had slipped and clung weakly to his elbow. It had gone grey, not silver or tan, but dreary, desperate grey.

Every breath he took was heaving and ragged, a snarling growl gushing out of his chest like fresh blood from a wound. She wasn't even sure if he could see her clearly in this state, but made sure she didn't step away or back down under that electric gaze. Fine, yes, she was scared, let him know she was scared- but she'd damn well stayed here so she wasn't going to just turn and run away now! His aura was still flying wild, white, green, and blue light surging over his body like high flames. There was only anger and hatred in him, but she spoke, somehow, and thought of Naraku to make the sight less terrifying.

"Do you want to rest here, or clean up down at the lake?" Her words didn't have the desired effect. Instead of bringing him back from the edge of whatever melt-down was threatening to rip him apart, Sesshoumaru pushed away from the cave wall and took several unsteady, lumbering steps towards her before stopping again. He couldn't speak and talk at the same time, and that worried her just as much as his appearance.

"_Why are you here! ?"_ Oh, screaming, she didn't like that and Kagura felt herself shrink back for a moment before she found herself getting mad at him. How _dare_ he treat her like this? And in his condition too! Selfish wretch, she hadn't just wasted a decade of her new life waiting for him to wake up and then keel over!

"_Why do you think! ?_" She shouted back, pulling the fan away and scowling at him indignantly, matching that furious red glare. "If this is how _Lord Sesshoumaru_ wants to conduct himself then b_y all means, M'lord! _Carry on as you were and I'll just wait here for the _real_ Demon Lord to climb out of that hole!"

_That_ had an effect on him, but she wasn't able to watch it before hearing the familiar twang of a bowstring. Artemis said _something_, but Kagura was too overcome with rage and fear to bother discerning the words before her physical body was torn apart by the wind. It didn't hurt, it was an innate ability she had picked up since her rebirth, second nature now as the offensive arrow cut through the space where she'd been standing and bit into the dusty rock next to the cave mouth.

She whipped right past Sesshoumaru, letting the gale that followed her hold him fast to the spot where he was standing so he didn't do anything to interfere. Striking the mutilated corpses of Artemis' dogs, Kagura pulled the two bitches up and made their corpses dance and snap at their mistress- dismembered claws and fangs biting into the goddess' exposed calves. Artemis shrieked something in outrage and tried to bat the corpses off with her bow, or to kick them, and her distraction gave Kagura enough time to draw in as much wind as she could, focusing on the space just in front of the huntress' stomach.

Reforming with her fan out and palm bracing the fragile tool, Artemis was staring at her with their noses almost touching.

"_Get off my mountain._"

Kagura hissed the words through her teeth and then unleashed the wind. This goddess had a place of principle, not element. She had no bestial powers to counter Kagura's wind, and no elemental ones to come to her aid. The only reason the witch hadn't attacked her sooner was because of the goddess' damn brother who carried the sun, and her father who flung lightning bolts and raped whatever woman caught his eye. No thank you, to either of them.

But Kagura wasn't going to be in Thrace much longer, so she took a sick satisfaction in watching Artemis' expression as her sandalled feet were torn off the ground and she was flung, like a discarded toy, straight off the side of the mountain. The Goddess arced high in the air and then crashed down far, far away from this place, and every moment she was gone would be one Kagura would savour.

"There." That felt _so_ good...! Shutting her fan with a horrible little smile on her face, Kagura turned around again. "And now for _you-_ you ungrateful..." Oh no... "...Sesshoumaru."

She thought it was just an enraged twitch in his face, now recognizing it as an agonized tremor that wouldn't leave his body. The Demon Lord took a step towards her, one clawed hand raised and oozing poison like he intended to strike her- or was he reaching for her? But it didn't matter, attempting to walk again caused his balance to go. She'd never seen him on his knees before, but that was where he wound up: down and braced on his hands as he opened his mouth and vomited a thick stream of red blood onto the dry ground.

At least he'd kept it together until the goddess was out of sight. The thought struck her as incredibly cruel, but then she realized it was probably the same thing he was thinking right now, the Demon Lord too weak to finish spitting out the crimson.

"Come inside." She said calmly, but lowered her voice from the defensive and angry tone she'd been using before now. Walking up to him cautiously, there was always a chance he would attack her, especially wounded as he was now, but he let her come close enough that she could feel the hot blood he'd spat up sticking to her toes on the rocks.

Holding one hand out, carefully, she made sure it wasn't turned palm-out to him like she expected him to grab onto her. She knew better than to offer, he'd just reject himself to death in order to preserve his intense standards. That was fine, if he collapsed then she would carry him, and if he could carry himself then that worked too.

No, what she did with her hand was very simple: she reached out to his face and brushed the back of one finger against his cheek. Not his marks, or his eye, just his cheek. Not his bloodied lips, not his rough hair, just a simple touch on his face so he knew, so he understood, that she was still with him.

"..._Why?_"

"Stupid dog, don't try and speak." She lectured, but her voice was soft. She said the words slowly, watching him carefully in case he began to list to either side and fall, then slowly removed her touch from his face. He had, maybe, begun to lean against it. She enjoyed that knowledge but refused to indulge in it. If things weren't done on his terms, then they wouldn't happen at all. Kagura had learned that while trying to convince him to slay Naraku: he'd done it in the end, but not because of anything she'd offered or bribed. His actions could always be understood in terms of his pride.

He did, eventually, find the strength to rise again on his own; summoning his pride like a crutch that carried him into the tiny cottage. He did it on his own, yes, and under his own power... But, he _did_ wait until she whispered the words _'I thought I belonged to you?'_ to him before he found those hidden reserves.

She would tend to his pride first, and worry about the rest later...

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><p><strong>I went and watched the Third Movie for the first time while writing this chapter. I've become such a fangirl while working on this story!<strong>


	13. Recovery

**Stole, What's Left of Me, Room of Angels.**

**Last line of the first paragraph is taken from a Bleach Fic called "Monogamous BFFs" (or something like that). I just... really love that line and mental image. So I plagiarized it, and now I'm pointing it out, so it's not plagiarism!**

**No time for final proof-read! I had a hectic Thursday!**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Recovery

He slept for another week, and somehow, from somewhere, she found the patience not to kill him for it. She'd spent so many years waiting for the stupid Demon Lord to wake up and do more than just glow, and now all he was going to do was keep sleeping. But this time he was breathing, and that was the only reason she couldn't pester him to wake up. It was why she didn't sit on his chest and demand consciousness _now:_ he was breathing.

He was breathing, and he was in such a deep, healing slumber that she could touch him and he didn't know. _Finally_. Yes, Kagura wanted him to know she touched him: when she applied a salve to the deep wound that had opened up his chest, especially when her fingers strayed from their task. She wanted him to know when she held his hand or touched his face, or his neck, or know that she was there when she gave in and laid down next to him, _listening_ to him breathe because just watching wasn't good enough.

And maybe he did know, but that thought was as scary as it was thrilling.

Even his clothing healed, which was both interesting to watch and disturbing at the same time. She removed his swords and set them on the ground right next to him so they wouldn't put up a fuss, taking the stupid rod and chucking it into a corner of the small space to punish it for being useless. She pulled off the cuirass and set it nearby as well so it could be mended by his recovering energy. The outer layer of his kimono came away too, with its red sleeves and honeycomb pattern, but the rest of his clothes she left alone. She didn't want to, but she resisted the temptation.

Would he want to eat when he woke up? It seemed likely, but Kagura knew without even trying that if she went and caught some sort of animal, be it a stag, a bear, or anything else, she ran the risk of ending up in Artemis' sights again. And besides, Sesshoumaru wouldn't _deign_ to eat anything captured for him by a woman, not unless he was able to make it a command rather than accept it as charity. Food would have to wait.

She was long past hating his pride by the time his eyes opened slowly, still consumed with red. His marks had gone back to smooth arcs on his cheeks and wrists, his tremors were long gone and, except for that crimson gaze, she could believe he was better. He even sat up on the woven mat where he'd laid down a week earlier, watching her silently with those large eyes. Kagura noticed now that when his gaze was like that, he didn't seem capable of viewing the world from half-way behind his eyelids. He was always wide awake and alert, electrified when teasing the power of his true form.

"You disobeyed me." His voice... had not recovered all the way. She guessed he had a choice between sounding rough and gravelly or calm and far away like right now, and was amused by how neither voice suited the question. Aside from that, it still took her a few minutes to remember what on earth he was going on about.

"_When we return, you will flee east."_ Ah yes, she remembered that command... She'd obviously ignored it. "_You will escape the maelstrom with the aid of Fujin, and you will find your way home."_

"I thought it better to keep the breeders at bay." She answered idly, seated by the door to her tiny hovel. It was not home, Kagura never thought of it as such. It was a shelter, a store-room, a place for when she needed to rest and stay out of the elements: even a wind witch got tired of being twisted and thrown around sometimes. He said nothing at her words though, and she took that to mean he didn't know what she was referring too.

"Do you remember the goddess who was here when you were released?" He still didn't answer, which was another no. She doubted he remembered Artemis trying to shoot her either- he'd been under obvious stress.

"Then do you remember the dogs she sent down to greet you?" Something changed in his eyes, and as she listened closely Kagura almost heard a growl rise out of his chest. She grinned at him. "Mononoke are a very rare breed of demon, Lord Sesshoumaru, you should be flattered that she considered you as a possible mate for her little pack of bitches." And now he was _definitely_ growling.

"_Disgusting..._"

"And yet you'd prefer to have woken up to _her_ presence instead of mine, I see how it is." She was teasing him, and his response to it was expected: he glared at her so coldly Kagura thought she might end up freezing for real this time. When he spoke his words were like blades:

"I said nothing of preference." Sharp, sound, and humming in the air even after they were spoken. So defensive. "I said you disobeyed me, Kagura."

"Of course I did." Because it had been a stupid demand, and his fears had been avoided without her flying all the way back to the islands: he hadn't died, and she hadn't been eaten. "What's the sense of following someone and then leaving them on the other side of the world? Fujin told me you'd be sealed down there for at least a hundred years, but here you are."

"Fujin likes that number..." She had said the same thing! But, now Sesshoumaru was thinking about something. It took him several very long moments to speak again, not because he needed so long to ponder, but because he so despised speaking unnecessarily. "How long was I sealed?"

_'As the Lord of the Western Lands, he won't like my answer...'_ Mm, no he certainly wouldn't. And what about that human child he had been so fond of? Kagura had thought of the girl from time to time over the years, but it only occurred to her now that after a decade the child would be an adult. How would he react to that, she wondered?

But he would find out eventually, so there was no sense in being vague or avoiding the question. He knew it hadn't been as long as a century because she'd said as much, he wanted specifics for a reason.

"Eleven, almost twelve years." Kagura made the admission with as little hesitation or emotion as she could manage, but was aware of how firmly her eyes were fixed on his face.

She watched every line and saw his muted, but present, reaction. First his jaw clenched- not tightly, but his teeth were locked for a moment. His eyes widened enough that it could have been a change in the light, but that wasn't the reason. Something was in his gaze and it took the longest to fade away: this news effected him, and just watching how guarded he was with his face she knew it was for emotional reasons, not duty-bound ones.

_'So that human's so important that he-?'_ Don't go there, Kagura. She admonished herself but let her back straighten up defensively, refusing to feel sad or rejected. She spent eleven years outside a stupid cave waiting for him, and all he'd done so far was yell at her and worry about some wretched child.

_'Bastard.'_

"What do you expect of me, Kagura?" Rough and gravelly, his voice sounded painful to use.

"Hm?" What sort of question was that to ask? She hadn't noticed herself glaring at one wall, but that was where her eyes were when he called her attention back to him. He looked reproachful, like he was going to lecture her.

"Should I give in like some mongrel to please you?" Please her? Listen to him!

"Give in to _what_ exactly?" She demanded coldly, her arms now folded tightly under her chest, teeth bared even if she couldn't actually growl at him. He, of course, refused to answer the question: just continued to stare at her with that crimson gaze. Fine, she'd change the subject, still not completely sure what he meant by his stupid question. "How long will your eyes remain like that, Sesshoumaru? Until you've fully healed?"

"I am finished healing." That was a quick response, he didn't even have to- "Come here." It took her a long moment to realize she wasn't breathing anymore, but once she started again she countered the demand with one of her own.

"Show me your chest." Where the ice had left the most brutal wounds. Kagura expected him to argue, or simply go dark again and refuse to answer, or maybe he'd merely repeat the command for her to go sit next to him.

Instead, his eyes narrowed dangerously for a moment before he undid the tie around his waist and pulled open the white kosode- the short under-robe, that he was still wearing. And he didn't just open it: he let it fall off his shoulders and down his arms, discarding the garment carelessly to the side. Kagura still didn't know if it was the nature of his clothes or his fur that kept it from getting in the way as he disrobed, but for the moment she was willing to ignore it. What had been a wide, gaping hole in his ribs and muscle was now just a wide pink mark down the middle of his chest. Good.

"Come here."

This time she did what he said, rising slowly from where she'd been seated against the amber light coming in through the entryway. Like at home, she had merely hung woven mats in the doorway to keep the rain out, meaning there was plenty of dusk light coming in and illuminating them both where he was seated across from her. There was a ray of orange cutting across his face, reflecting in one red eye and sending a warm shimmer down his restored hair.

Kneeling down next to him, it was an effort to keep her eyes on his instead of running them down his shoulders and arms. If she looked then it would be impossible to avoid brushing her fingertips across the pink welts that had replaced his horrendous wounds. Every broken bone had re-aligned and mended itself as he slept here, it was just a matter now of his body determining how many scars it would keep from his imprisonment...

"I know what I expect from you Kagura." He spoke the words coldly, without affection, and she didn't know whether to resent it or tease his sense of propriety. "And you have yet to perform." _That_ she didn't expect, and she let him know it as she glared at him hotly.

"_Excuse me?_" He couldn't _possibly_ mean that this was just-

"Where is the wind I searched for?" She wanted to make him clarify that, but couldn't speak. Kagura understood the question, her mind going back to that time between dying and waking, those months, those years, spent in a dream that she hadn't wanted to see end. It was the dream that told her why he had two arms again, the one that gave her peace knowing Naraku was dead, and that his body had been destroyed by the Demon Lord in front of her. The Demon Lord she had followed and caressed, who she'd hung onto an kissed whenever she felt compelled to do so.

The Demon Lord she refused to touch now so long as he was awake, all for the sake of his corrosive pride...

"I'm waiting, Kagura." Waiting? Well then he could just keep doing that, like he'd promised to, while she sat here, like she'd promised, and waited and- and why was she thinking this way?

"I hate you." She'd die if he pushed her away, not from heartache, but from sheer hatred and humiliation. Kagura reached for his face with both hands and completely expected to find his claws rammed through her chest for the transgression. Instead, the wind demon's palms found themselves cradling his jaw and cheeks tenderly, and his lips were moving against hers where she'd sat up and kissed him. His skin was so warm...

She understood what he'd meant meant by _give in_ when his hands closed around her arms, holding on tight just below her shoulders with his claws digging into her skin. A hot thrill shot into her stomach when he started pulling on her and pushed his mouth against hers. Her hands slipped from his jawline down to his chest, palms braced against his mended flesh but without pushing him away. Stop? Why would she want him to do that?

"Se-" He didn't want her to talk, she felt herself gasp a little as her body was made to twist around like he was going to push her down onto her back. But instead he just held her like that, relying on his strength to keep her up and his mouth to keep her silent. Kagura's eyes fluttered open briefly and then closed again, catching sight of the red that was still invading his gaze and letting herself relax into his hold.

She did end up on the floor, but was placed there carefully on her side, able to feel an unwanted tremor strike his body and weaken him. Sesshoumaru didn't try climbing onto her even though she would have let him do it. Everything _about_ him said he clearly wanted to try- the possessive look in his crimson eyes, the sharp lengths of his elongated teeth, the shallow breaths hissing past his thin lips and a persistent growl that wouldn't go away. He had to lay down again right where he'd been before- on his back, and just watched her, hatred and lust oozing out of his skin.

Kagura didn't move from where he'd put her down for a very long time, waiting to see how long it would take before he reigned in his passions and fell asleep. He was still watching her the same way, still growling, even after the midnight hour passed.

"What should I bring for you to eat?" He claimed he wasn't injured anymore, and yes, she believed him, but that didn't mean his strength had come back yet. Feeding would help him recover. And once he'd recovered... Kagura didn't let herself think about it, not yet.

"_Meat._" The choice didn't surprise her, given what he was. And he answered her, which meant he really was hungry in the obvious way. But he was still watching her, his crimson eyes focused on her as a whole. Kagura felt a wave of heat travel through her covered skin every time his turquoise pupils openly roamed down over her body.

"What kind, just bleeding?" _Now_ he didn't dignify her with an answer, which was alright. Nodding slowly, Kagura was surprised how hard it was to sit and stand up, only noticing now that she'd cut her lip on one of his fangs during that paralysing kiss. The wound had already closed, her tongue checking the tender spot just to make sure.

Kagura knew better than to touch him again before she turned to leave, pushing the flap out of the way as she stopped and looked back back at him, where he was _still_ growling. He was going to hate her so much for watching him like this, but the wind witch let herself smirk down at Sesshoumaru and his lack of control.

"Rest." And then her form merged with the wind, and she left.

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><p><strong>X3<strong>

**And I gave this like a half-done proof-read a few hours after originally posting it up. I've read over it like a dozen times anyways, but I always like giving chapters one FINAL go-over before publishing them on the site. **


	14. A Lord's Discerning Palate

**Brothers in Arms, Diamond.**

**I've been getting a down-right INSANE number of hits on this story (for me). It makes me think I should be updating daily, but I need more time, damn it! And my account has once again hit the 800,000 word mark! One step closer to 1 million! **

**Plus, with thanks to some wiki-magic, I have also learned the rough location of the actual Western Lands (learned as in I figured it out, not learned as in I discovered it...)! It's not as big as I thought it was, but the info kinda helps with some stuff in the sequel project. ****So since I feel like sharing: the honeycombs on Sesshoumaru's shoulder (according to the IYWiki) is the Azai clan symbol. Google and Real!Wiki say the Azai Clan was wiped out in the 16****th**** Century when they lost against Oda Nobunaga, and their territory, known as the Omi province, is west of Tokyo- which I believe is the city Kagome lives in/near?**

**On with the story!**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

A Lord's Discerning Palate

When he was left alone to lie in wait for Kagura's return Sesshoumaru began to understand what had happened to him. The last thing he remembered clearly was her touch, something that should not have been there with him in the darkness. He'd reached for her, sought that voice and that scent. He'd craved that touch on his face and the fingers in his hair.

It was revolting to relive that moment, to recognize the depths of his weakness as he'd failed to die with even the slightest dignity. It was better that he had slept: Sesshoumaru would not have been able to face his father in the afterlife knowing he had departed like a defeated animal, simpering in the shadows. Too weak to face death alone in the dark; he had craved some woman's presence instead of upholding his pride and honour… She had cleared his mind and brought him slumber instead of death, it was pathetic of him to have relied on her so heavily at such a critical moment.

And now…

'_Eleven years…'_ Almost twelve, according to her. That meant Rin would be… twenty-five. He had been gone for almost half her life just chasing the wind. His lands would be a memory by now then, and if anything remained of his inheritance then it would be confined to whichever wing of the palace had held out this long against whatever demons had come to carve his territories into pieces.

But those losses, at least, could be regained. He took solace in the knowledge that regardless of who had trespassed across his borders, they would be cut down by him soon enough. He simply had to focus on returning home now, and on recovering his strength.

That last part was where he found difficulty. Even after the woman left, her scent lingered in the air; clinging to every jar and pot and shelf in the small hovel. He kept closing his eyes only to have them rebelliously open again: sought to calm his breathing but just continued to hiss and growl past his elongated teeth.

'_Stop this.'_ He wanted her back, he wanted her here, he wanted to see and taste and own her and he didn't want to wait. Staring up at the wooden ceiling his body both agreed with and mocked him, the urge to take her was in his blood, but his limbs were impossibly heavy, his skin raw and sore. He was fighting off two kinds of hunger as he lay there; one for the physical meal Kagura would bring back with her, the other for the woman herself. She was his, and he was going to prove it and... and...

And_ everything_ hurt. A dull throb pulsed from his scalp down through the soles of his feet whenever he moved. The pain itself wasn't severe, but it lingered and wore away at him, another irritation to fray his raw nerves.

Sesshoumaru forced himself to sit up again and then stand so he could dress and arm himself properly, making the pain worse. He just clenched his sharp teeth and wore through it: the routine of dressing was something to distract his thoughts and flesh as the hours slowly slipped by. Why was she taking so long?

His armour was uncomfortable and felt restrictive as he strapped it on, the swords sleepy and unhelpful as he slipped them through the yellow sash belted around his waist. Bakusaiga grumbled irritably, unimpressed by his comatose state and mocking his crimson gaze as he consistently failed to reign in his demonic blood. Tenseiga ignored the issue of blood completely- such a fitting ignorance. When he laid hands on the broken sword all it tried to do was awaken his sentimental heart: Kagura was alive.

Wretched blade.

He saw Eurus' rod resting in the corner and flatly ignored it, content to leave it behind if that was what it took to never touch it again. He couldn't abandon the Tenseiga the same way however, carefully drawing the broken weapon and retrieving the snapped end of the sword off the floor where Kagura had left it while he slept. Totosai would have to repair the blade when Sesshoumaru returned, but for now he merely dropped the broken end into the sheath, then slipped the rest of it back inside. The sword felt a little stronger for having its pieces reunited, but still weary and tired.

Useless blade.

"I was worried you'd be asleep again!" It was dawn by the time he heard her voice. Sesshoumaru was standing outside the hovel, taking note of the obvious work done near the cave when the wind changed. There had been no building and no small shrine anywhere near Boreas' mountain before or during the battle, and he found their appearance surprisingly difficult to cope with.

Aside from the constructions, he did feel almost better now that he was outside. The air had calmed him enough for his vision to adjust properly, his red blood returning to his veins where it belonged rather than coursing visibly through his eyes. As he looked around for the wind the landscape was no longer tinted red with his violent instincts, but it was a trial to maintain that control. It frustrated him to see so much work done along the battered mountainside; to review so many menial tasks, each one necessary to waste eleven years of time. _Eleven years._

Kagura formed from the wind itself- something he did not expect, and lifted both eyebrows slowly to showcase his interest. She still wore a pair of feathers in her hair, but apparently had little need of them anymore. Her clothing, something he hadn't seen or noticed at any point before now, was blue instead of that striped magenta kimono. It didn't seem to fit quite right either, like there was something cumbersome worn underneath... His attention soon left her clothes however.

"You're bleeding." The sight threatened the weak hold he had over his transformation, but he maintained it fiercely. There was blood coming from her shoulder, not enough to threaten her life, but it was coming from close to her heart. Was that an arrow?

She ignored him and gestured over her shoulder to something he had smelt but tried to ignore in favour of- yes, that _was _an arrow and- enough. _Enough._

Hovering and trapped within a cage of air was the beast Kagura had captured and brought back for him: a massive bear with a shaggy hide and no visible wounds. There was no blood on it, and as Kagura closed her fan the animal dropped to the ground and began to move. It was pathetic of him, but Sesshoumaru's eyes did roam over the creature once quickly to verify that, no, it did not have nor look capable of wielding a bow.

Looking back at her, he noticed now that the weapon in her hands was crude. The fabric making up the fan smelled like wool, and there were only two wooden spines that were notched to lock against one another so they could be clumsily manipulated. She had to actually use both hands to close it, and he felt his lip curl up in disgust, refusing to growl, but tempted.

"What? Aren't you hungry?" She asked boldly, hanging the travesty of a fan from her waist and folding her arms. The motion caused a bit more crimson to soak through her side, and without seeing it clearly he could sense the blood oozing down her back and hips from that wooden shaft. "If you let that beast walk away, Sesshoumaru, I'm not going to find you another one." He didn't look at the bear, he looked at the woman.

Despite her taunt, the bear was not walking away. In fact the beast was now standing on its hind legs, facing them both as if it didn't know that it was about to die. But no- it was aware, any animal would be able to sense his power even if it was ignorant of Kagura's nature. The fact that it dared roar at them and break into a wild charge meant that it would rather fight than run.

A worthy meal, but not an opponent he was obligated to look at.

"Answer me." Raising his right hand just enough to flick his wrist in the direction of the charging animal, the green length of his whip fired out and slashed through the top half of the animal's head, across the eyes. The massive, fury body kept running for another length and a half before all muscle control was lost and it collapsed, skidding to a halt at his feet, scattering dry dust and a few pebbles.

"You didn't ask a question." Kagura was as unphased by the bear as he, at least until her red eyes glanced down at the halved cranium and she wrinkled her nose at the quivering mass. She pulled her fan back out again and opened it over her mouth and nose, clearly expressing her disgust. "I'll be inside, when you're finished out here then we can leave."

She turned away from him and Sesshoumaru's left hand moved this time, grasping her arm tightly. He allowed his claws to cut into her skin and stain her otherwise unblemished sleeve as he restrained her, but Kagura didn't struggle. She was wearing wool under her kimono, which explained the colour change: she had swapped one layer with a gross replacement.

"You're growling again." He didn't reply, and he didn't _ask_ the question. She already knew what he meant and met his stare as he just let the growl increase in volume. He could see the arrow clearly now, its silver fletching and vine-laden shaft clear marks that he would not forget. "Fine. I've _irritated_ a goddess of the hunt with my presence here. Satisfied?"

"The woman with the dogs." The one Kagura had fired off the mountain. His memory was hazy, his senses had been an awkward mess at the time; they had showered him with nothing but rancid emotions.

Kagura didn't answer him with words, just met his level gaze with a look that clearly asked if he was finished with his questions: red eyes calm and both thin black brows raised expectantly. He looked at the arrow again, and his neck stiffened just a little: he heard the memory of a bowstring and the hiss of an identical shaft. He didn't look back at the cave, he could _feel_ the misfired shot where it had buried its wooden head into the stones. The goddess had shot _at_ Kagura twice, but only landed once- that he knew of.

He would kill her.

"Your dinner's getting cold." He watched Kagura closely for a few more moments, relaxing his grip on her arm and retracting his claws until he finally let go. She seemed unperturbed by the violence and ignorant of the pain, waiting until he looked down at the dead animal laying in front of him before moving to walk away. She stopped without going very far though, and threaded her fingers through his bloodied ones. He waited for her to squeeze and held on to her for a moment after that, his answer.

"I'll be inside." _Hnn_...

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><p>It was rare for him to feed, but his body demanded it after his ordeals. Repressing the urge would only delay his recovery. Had he not been absent from his duties for so many years he would never have given in, but the mere thought of lesser demons traipsing across his lands and claiming them as their own helped stifle his pride.<p>

Kagura had brought him an aggressive animal, which _perhaps _explained why she had been gone for so many hours. This one was male and had been decidedly violent, striking out against its betters. She had also brought it to him alive and uninjured, giving him a chance to judge his meal before deciding if it was worthy of consumption.

He did not savour the meal but didn't hesitate with the organs and flesh either. He consumed the heart first, prying it from the steaming carcass, followed by the liver. From there he had no preference; draining the body of blood and breaking bones with his teeth. He left nothing but the skin, fur, teeth and claws, his body consuming the food as quickly as he could devour it; putting it to use restoring tender muscle and fragile bone. Once he had finished with the carcass Sesshoumaru knew he could have continued eating, but at least the edge was taken off for now.

It was full daylight before he stood up from where he had crouched next to the animal, taking a few moments to deal with any wayward blood or bone that may have marred his appearance. He even cleaned off and devoured the blood he'd drawn from Kagura, his skin simply absorbing the sustenance to spare him from having to lick it off. Such displays were fine for his true form, when he was completely himself, but not when he appeared as a human.

Kagura was asleep, laying down on the mat where he had woken up after a week's slumber, a week that had followed eleven years of painful, oblivious night. She was curled up on her right side, and her clothing was pulled down off the other shoulder where the pale skin was stained with blood. He knew without entering that the wound had closed by now, and kept himself on the other side of the wall.

The urge to go inside and claim her was made all the more unbearable as Tenseiga mumbled dolefully at his side, praising his self-control and attributing it to some imaginary tenderness. Bakusaiga gave a more appropriate response: his eyes inexplicably drawn away from the slumbering demoness and over to where the bloodied arrow was resting discarded on the floor.

Goddess of the Hunt...

_'I have had enough of these _'Gods'_.'_

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><p><strong>This story is so long chapter-wise XD If I were to collapse them into longer chapters then it would be much shorter. I didn't do it like this to make the story feel obnoxious, but just to help me write it quickly. I got to chapter 14 in a week!<strong>

**Which is a funny little segue into the Sequel project, because I keep forgetting to add in some information about it to these ANs. YES, there is a sequel! But it's been giving me a hard time. I started working on the sequel when I started _posting_ RtW here on the site, and I'm only just on chapter 10. Why? Because I've canned like 12 chapters of content thanks to revision and mood-swings. I had about seven and some chapters finished before I went on vacation in May, and while on the PLANE going overseas I remembered that I hate stories with lots of OCs, so why the hell was I writing one? Slaughtered the OCs, and it was glorious, but I keep changing my mind about things- even the title.**

**I've got another... 5 chapters to go with RtW after this one, so I'm not to sure about whether the sequel will be going live RIGHT after this story wraps up or not. I don't want to post a story that isn't finished, especially since I've been scrapping and revising so much of it looking for the right mix of content and emotion.**

**I'll have some real solid info for you guys come chapter 19, so hold tight till then and don't forget to review!**


	15. Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt

**With You (AAA).**

**Might end up re-posting this chapter a bit later, because I'm too tired at midnight to do the final proof-read, but I find posting at like 12:06 makes the overall hit counter go up higher since I'm catching some night owls. So here you go! Chapter 15.**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt

Sesshoumaru did not require permission to leave the mountain, nor did he have to explain himself to Kagura before doing so. Testing his strength, speed, and over-all recovery were important matters he needed to deal with on his own, not with the sorceress hovering at his side and watching him expectantly. He would not allow her to coddle him.

His body responded as it should, Sesshoumaru testing himself at a run and then increasing speed in jumps and bursts. Satisfied with his abilities, but not pleased, the only area in which he failed was when a particular scent reached him and caused the Demon Lord to inadvertently slow: game.

'_I have already fed.' _But he went from smelling it to seeing it. The Demon Lord had been moving along a river all this time when he found himself abruptly on the edge of a valley meadow. A group of deer was already on the run and headed towards him. He wasn't sure what had spooked the herd until he heard a sharp yip, and the wind brought him the scent of three- four female dogs running within the deer.

The dogs were going for the stag at the head of the party, the one crowned with a tree of horns weighing its head down. Sesshoumaru watched one of the bitches come close, but not close enough, to nip the stag's flanks before the beast hit the river and splashed him. His irritation flared, but when the bitch's failed lunge lined her up with his body, the Demon Lord wasn't about to move.

His claws tore a rent across her face and throat, deflecting her white form into the water with a pained yowl and a red-tinted splash. An arrow cut through the air next and struck the stag through the back of its thick neck; silver fletching, vine-like detailing. He heard the vertebrae snap out of place as the wooden shaft forced the links of the spine apart and paralysed the beast instantly. The other three dogs had their teeth in its hide a moment later, fighting the river's weak current with their burden and requiring several minutes to successfully drag it back to the shore a few yards downstream from him. He was silent for the entire display, feeling no need to move as he observed.

"I knew you'd come." He was still watching the kill as the celestial speaker approached, a faint wind giving him little to work with to discern a proper scent: the smell of crushed grass and unfamiliar ferns, the dirty sweat of beasts and soil. Her appearance meant nothing to him, she had no physical charm. "But I see your temper is still sour. She will expect an apology from you for that scar."

"I have nothing to apologize for." He did not know why this answer surprised her, but spurned divinity was not something he cared to deal with. The smell of a wet, bleeding, shamed bitch pulled his attention down to the stony ground, the Goddess watching as well as the dog lowered herself in front of his feet, whimpering softly- as she ought to.

Only after it was clear he was not going to kill her did the dog climb to her feet again, shaking herself off slowly before joining her pack-mates where they were seated obediently around the stag's body. They were watching him and their mistress closely, panting from their exhilarating run and a kill that wasn't even their own. Sesshoumaru felt his skin crawling at the sight of them; the stag wasn't even dead, not yet.

"Come eat with us." The goddess had a smile which irritated him when he looked at her, her vine-laden bow held in one hand, an archer's glove protecting her fingers as she gestured over to the stag. "You followed their scent and headed them off, you must be hungry."

"I followed the river." He corrected, but did not move as the copper-haired goddess turned from him and drew the long hunting knife at her belt. The dogs moved respectfully when she neared and gave her access to the carcass, tails slapping the ground as the injured one even received an affectionate pat on the head and ruffle down the uninjured side of her neck.

The Goddess' knife moved cleanly through the skin and hot flesh underneath, severing the stag's great vein and finally allowing her kill to die. After that, she moved the blade around from the neck and then slashed a tendon over the beast's knee before she skinned and removed the shoulder muscle. He watched her hold the pink flesh over the grass, waiting for most of the red blood to drain away.

"If you prefer cooked meat, I can do that too." Her smiling, conversational nature only irritated him further as the woman stood and brought the slab of prepared meat to him. The pink flesh was resting between her hand and the knife so it was flat instead of folded over her fingers: it kept her hands clean. He looked at the offering only long enough to deem it a disgraceful meal, then looked at her again, biding his time as she watched him with expectant green eyes.

"You are an Olympian." He saw triumph cross her gaze and tinge her smile. Did she feel that she had won something with his remark? Was he a prize now for her vanity?

"I am." She crooned, sounding conceited. "My twin brother Apollo drives the sun across the sky, and my father is the master of storms." Sesshoumaru felt his eyes narrow dangerously at her but did not regret the action. His temper was held tightly under control as he watched sympathy seep into her gaze. She was a fool who did not know how to speak to him.

"Your master was lucky my father let him destroy Boreas," his _what?_ "-he was extremely angry over the maelstrom, and Fujin would never have stood a chance if Zeus had picked Boreas' side." Sesshoumaru turned and began to walk away.

"Uh- wait! Where are you going?"

"I have seen enough." He was going back to the mountain and Kagura: this woman was not worth the effort of killing.

"But I'm a goddess!" She shouted, affronted as her dogs began to bark and whimper after him. "With me you could hunt every day, across the whole world, and for the most fabulous prey imaginable!" Foolish babble, she looked like a woman, but sounded like a child. "You would serve a a mistress who would never abandon you to freeze inside a dead mountain!"

"I have no master." And he did not serve, and he had _not_ been abandoned. Kagura would not have waited eleven years in a foreign land if she only intended to leave afterwards. And even if she _had_ left, as he had told her to, then it would not have bothered him because it would not have been abandonment- but he wouldn't have cared either way.

"I would have brought your brother to rescue you!" This stopped him; as much as he wanted to go, now Sesshoumaru found he could not. His vision went red for a moment, then calmed as he reminded himself that she would not be worth the effort. She was running up behind him, he could hear her footsteps light and fast over the pebbled river bank.

"That's right," she said, sounding breathless- he could hear her smile. "I would have done anything to awaken you, because you deserve that sort of devotion and respect." Admiration, next would be flattery: "I have never seen one of your kind who compares; I watched your battle against Boreas, and even after you were sealed away I could sense your power every day!" Then a comparison: "If she understood your potential nearly as well as I do, she would never have just waited all these years for you to return- she would have gone and dragged you out of that stupid cave!" And finally a petition: "Stay here with us, you know it must be where you belong." It was easy to be worshipped.

"You are selfish." He heard her gasp softly as he levelled the accusation at her, but refused to turn around. He would no longer look at her. "If you understood me nearly as well as you claim," if she understood him the way- nevermind. "-you would not have the strength to stand and carry on as you have, shame would destroy you." His temper would not tolerate her presence any longer, if he did not leave then he would kill her, and it would be an unnecessary risk to slaughter the goddess when his physical state was so precarious. He was in no physical condition to fight the sun's transporter, and even Bakusaiga urged caution.

However, both it and the broken Tenseiga fuelled his conviction to say one more thing:

"I failed to destroy Boreas before Fujin arrived, woman," and it was a shame that would take years to fade and recover from. "-but if you approach _my_ Kagura again then not even the strength of your father and brother together will protect you from me."

And then he took to the air and left the goddess behind, his body condensing down into a tiny orb of light and speeding back the way he had come.

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><p>"So you're back? I thought you'd gone and started home without me." This teasing comment was all Kagura had to say when their paths met unexpectedly. He reformed out of the light when he encountered first her scent, and then a tangible aura flying on the wind back towards the mountain. A white feather peeled itself out of the air and began to grow, Kagura pulling herself out of the wind and kneeling on the thick spine of the flying vessel. Her black hair was wet and flying free behind her in the afternoon sun, the scent of blood gone from her skin and clothes.<p>

Good.

"Shall we leave today or tomorrow?" She asked, not clarifying the statement and leaving him to understand that she was talking about their return east. He approved of the idea, pleased that she didn't seem attached to this land despite the constructions she'd built.

"Tomorrow." But despite his approval he decided to delay, if only for the one day. Kagura's winds had slowed and he had waited with her on the eddies as the question came up and was answered, their progress back to the mountain resuming afterwards.

When they returned he found the cleaned bear pelt laying on the floor over the sleeping mat. His concerns for her attachment to this place were roused again for a moment, but he put them from his mind.

"Are you tired again?" She asked. He'd landed on the ground and gone inside without a word, moving purposefully until he found that there was no-place to wander within the cramped space. It was truly a hovel, good for nothing but storing the mediocre collection of items she had amassed. None of them looked useful.

"No." His back to her, Sesshoumaru wasn't looking at the wall for a particular reason, but he did handle Bakusaiga's hilt for a moment before drawing the sheathed blade out from where it had been resting against his side. He propped the sword up on the wall, followed by the Tenseiga.

"What do you want to do with this?" He glanced over his shoulder and saw her holding Eurus' white rod, her fingers roaming over the gold inlaid and examining the blackened tip. So he asked her:

"Do you want it?"

"Do you?"

"No."

She smiled and he understood that meant she would keep it. Kagura knew better than to mistake it for a gift, merely beginning to play with her new toy rather than give an inane _'thank you' _ for the unwanted trinket. It would not carry them east, and it had gone forgotten and unused the only time it would have been remotely useful. Cast-offs could not masquerade as gifts.

"Oho! I like this..." He looked again with his armour half undone, the task momentarily forgotten as he watched her control the wind and spread a few finger-long flames from the rod into a fan. He could tell from her excitement that she was eager to try it out on something, but he wasn't interested in fulfilling her fancy at the moment. There would be demons enough to kill when they returned home.

She was quiet after that and merely set the rod down somewhere along with her crude fan. Removing his cuirass and pauldron, Sesshoumaru set them down next to the quiet swords. After that he removed his kimono and simply dropping the white and red garment on the floor before Kagura found her way over to him.

It pleased him that she understood his intentions, it would have irritated him to explain things to her. He wanted no more irritation today.

She touched his face with the back of one hand, avoiding the marks on his cheek for a moment before the caress ended and she brushed her thumb along the fuchsia lines. Her other hand came down to rest over his collar bone, skin warm through the under-layer he was still wearing. His breaths went shallow as she reached up with both arms and wrapped them around his neck, a gust of wind boosting her up enough so her body was pressed flush against his, and her red lips reached his for a kiss.

_Then_ he touched back. His hands started behind her shoulders and moved down her back and sides, his claws kept away with agonizing self-control as he felt the fabric layers move together, sliding over her hidden skin. When he found the woven yellow belt that kept her clothing together he pulled her hips closer against his, leaning in with his mouth over hers as he gave a firm tug on the knot to loosen it.

It tightened.

"Don't- don't, let me do it." A snort and a giggle beat her words in the race to reach his ears, Sesshoumaru's crimson eyes snapping open with a warning growl as she broke the kiss to laugh at him. How _dare_ she mock him, he- "There..."

His hand was still tightly gripping the side of the belt, and once it went loose around her waist he tossed it away and pushed the claws of his other hand against her scalp, crushing her mouth with another kiss. She made two soft sounds in her throat to answer him, a small whimper, and something else that he couldn't name, but wanted to hear again.

She was standing on the floor again after releasing him to deal with the belt, her nimble fingers working his white kosode open and pulling it off his shoulders after he made her shed the blue kimono. When he felt rough, itchy wool rub against his bare chest and irritate the palms of his hands, his grip on her became possessive: Sesshoumaru pushed his forehead against hers to break the kiss.

"You will wear _silk_." He snarled, eyes a deep, bloody red now that almost matched her cloudy rouge ones. Wool had its purposes, but not thick like this, coarse, uneven, _dirty_. He would not tolerate this woman wearing peasant's clothes.

Kagura didn't have an answer for him, just pulled his face down onto hers again before her hands spread down his shoulders and arms. She was taken with his skin, pulling her lips away so she could rub her face against the flesh over his chest. Kagura worked her way around to his left shoulder with nuzzles and kisses, her hot breaths giving him pause as she reached the only large scar on his body: the rim of discoloured flesh where his first arm had been severed and from which the second had grown.

He discarded the wool layer hugging her body with only a _few_ holes in the vile garment. The last one, green, was shorter than the previous two and only came just down to her knees. He took advantage of this, pulling her hips against his again and pushing one leg between her thighs. She made that sound again, the one he'd liked, and slid down him a little with her weight resting over his knee. She leaned in against his chest with her eyes closed, hands holding onto his shoulder and fur as he slid his hands down her waist, pushing against the folded edge of her robe over her stomach.

He pried the last layer open part-ways before he found himself distracted by her scent and body. Both were intoxicating when she was like this: flushed and panting, her lips mumbling broken words against his sweat-misted skin. His hands invaded her clothing and found her curves and swells, Kagura reaching up with her hands to pull his head down again, kissing his jaw and throat as his claws skated over her skin without cutting the smooth flesh.

"Lay down." He noticed his own heavy breathing as she nodded to him, her eyes barely open while his were wide and burning, instinct rooting him firmly in this moment. His claws went back to digging into the green silk of her last layer, holding both sides of the opening and making it impossible for her to just slip out of the green. It gave him control, it meant that when she moved he went with her, that she couldn't get away and that nothing was going to interrupt this. He was still half-dressed himself, but not concerned with that right now. His lips followed her neck as she reclined back on the bear pelt, his body settling over hers as her scent spiked and danced for his enjoyment. And he was enjoying himself, exposing her body to the air and feeling how she reacted to him as he moved.

The pelt and his fur together made the floor almost comfortable, and the walls meant it was nearly private. His blood was running too hot to toy with her as long as he wanted though, and when he took her it was suddenly and for his own satisfaction. She didn't seem to mind though, and her body reacted to his presence with enthusiasm: awake and active, moving with him fast or slow until he was abruptly spent. She stayed afterwards; welcoming him down to rest on her smooth white skin as the fire burned itself out, their scents mingling in the air and calming his raging blood.

He didn't mark her after the fact, there was no urgent reason for him to do so and his mind and body were severely taxed just putting his scent on her. He wrapped his fur around her body once he was done, his head resting on the shoulder of a woman who stroked his hair and face soothingly. The demonic red faded naturally from his eyes as she smiled and spoke to him, his instincts satisfied for the time being. He wrapped one arm around her body like the fur, his other hand grazing her skin with his claws, moving over the different colours and textures of skin.

The sun set while Kagura spoke to him, and Sesshoumaru knew he answered her, knew he was listening. It was just that by the time he woke up again later he had no idea what it was either one of them had said all night... And did it matter?

Not really.

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><p><strong>I feel kinda bad for setting up the Greek deities as one-dimensional "straw men", but it's a SesshouKagura fic, not a "Mount Olympus 90210".**


	16. Eastward Bound

**Diamond, Brothers in Arms, What's Left of Me, Iris.**

**This got a really nice almost-last-minute update once I realized there was like absolutely no fluff in the entire chapter xD**

**Also, while I enjoyed the insane bump in hits and traffic by updating off-schedule like I did, I will NOT be doing that again. I'm only 13-and-a-half chapters through the sequel, and I'm guessing that's half/two-thirds of the content. I need more time, damnit! I hate having long breaks between story publication!**

**So yeah, hold tight till Thursday.**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

Eastward Bound

They left the next morning, and Kagura got to try her new toy just before they turned east. The handle was long and smooth, a bit awkward for her, but with the flames spread it felt like a fan. It wasn't flexible in physics or power though, it wasn't as manoeuvrable as a fan and she couldn't use it to just summon wind: it had to include fire and heat whenever it was activated. She'd have to deal with it for now, but at least it was easier than the cumbersome wool creation she'd been using until this point.

And really, the added boost of destructive power didn't bother her. The old hovel she'd built was demolished with a single blow, and the entrance to Sesshoumaru's _'tomb' _was hidden by the rubble and then the cascade of stone and sand that the blast triggered. He seemed pleased watching it all collapse, but merely turned to the east and pulled himself up into the air once it was done. That was fine, she didn't expect him to understand, not really.

It wasn't clear at first which one of them was faster, or who could _be_ faster depending on how hard they worked. Kagura knew her movements depended on the natural flow and direction of the wind, whereas he, normally, could simply power his way through any unfavourable weather. She found herself remaining as the wind most of the time, flying near him, remaining close- sometime touching. It was simply easier when she was within her element, and it formed a compromise between them: it allowed for contact even when they weren't intimate. But _almost _more importantly for Kagura, let her keep close watch over him without it being incredibly obvious. So what if he knew? At least he didn't have to acknowledge it. And he never did.

"I'm tired." Saying the words was her way of making him stop, and it only worked when he knew he was pushing himself too far and needed to rest, the Demon Lord still not completely recovered from his ordeals. Pride wouldn't let him simply stop and settle on the ground someplace for a few minutes, or resort to walking for several hours, but if he needed to do it and she made it sound like they were stopping for her instead, he'd bend. He was a stubborn fool, her Sesshoumaru.

He had explained the path across the world as well as he was either able to or cared to try. From Thrace they would cross over a wide sea, then it would be mountains and plateaus for a very, very long time before they reached a desert and more familiar plains and wetlands. It was when that first sea came into sight that Kagura decided to speak up again.

"I want to rest before we cross over."

"No." Her _'suggestions'_ didn't always work... His pride was too strong to allow Sesshoumaru to rest before a difficult trial. So rather than put him in a foul mood and lock him ever stronger to his convictions, Kagura relented instead. Fine, no rest, but she resolved not to catch him if he fell.

Three days later the eastern shore of the Black Sea came into view, and Kagura was equal parts pleased and disappointed that he'd made it across unscathed. It meant that he was indeed almost back at full strength, but also that she'd been worrying too much, like some obnoxiously dependant woman- like that priestess with the bow! The one who couldn't go a single battle without whining or worrying or screaming at the Half-breed. Ugh, if Kagura turned out like that she'd never live it down...

"Are you tired?"

"Hm?" She'd been flying on her feather for the last few hours, the two of them moving at a steady pace with their backs to the setting sun. Sesshoumaru was flying just ahead and above her, so Kagura couldn't quite see his face for the fur on his right side.

"I said are you tired?" He... repeated the question?

"Very." Quickly looking down at the glittering water, Kagura pointed to a portion of the shore. "Lets stop down there for the night." Brown stone cliffs with several pockets of sandy beach, it was a remote landscape where they weren't likely to be stumbled upon or disturbed by any native spirits or creatures. The Demon Lord's aura was usually enough of a deterrent, but they'd already had to deal with one or two minor irritants: demons too curious to keep themselves from following him around.

She expected him to reject the suggestion that they stay in one place _all_ night, that only ever happened for very special reasons, but he was silent. Sesshoumaru merely angled himself towards the cliffs as he began to descend; and descend quickly.

His toes nearly skimmed the water before he landed on the beach, Kagura letting her bare feet touch the wet, grainy sand lightly as he stormed a short ways up towards the cliffs. When he stopped walking he didn't turn or say anything, his head not quiet up straight, his aura not exactly stable; he was exhausted, and that reality frustrated him.

There was nothing she could really say that would keep his pride satisfied, Kagura fighting off a sigh that he would no doubt hear as she slowly stepped up behind him. There was a breeze and she watched that comb through his silver hair, smiling slowly as she appealed to one of his other vices instead.

"The light does beautiful things to you, Lord Sesshoumaru." Pink and red and gold danced along the strands of hair as the sun set behind them in the west, Kagura slowly sitting down on the sand and looking at him instead of up at the sky. When he glanced down at her, the gold in his eyes was treated the same way: something in his irii going green and blue as they were cut by the light. "So many colours..."

His perfect nature gave him marvellous beauty, and when something compelled him to sit next to her Kagura folded herself against his right side. She was always to his right, it kept her from having to deal with the pauldron curled over his other shoulder. He didn't settle his arm around her though, she just happened to be in the limb's way as she wove her fingers between his over her stomach. And it was the wind that caused his fur to curl over her legs, so it was just her imagination that made it feel like he was holding onto her.

But Kagura knew that something _else_ lulled him to sleep so soundly in her presence. Pride and circumstance had nothing to do with it, and even his toxic self-love couldn't do anything when he unexpectedly woke up cradled in her arms, his back against her chest and body resting between her legs. With his head already settled on her shoulder and Kagura's fingers still brushing over the crescent moon on his forehead, the Demon Lord had lain stiff for a moment, then turned his sensitive nose against her throat and gone back to sleep, waiting for dawn.

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><p>Their speed was fast but their progress was still agonizingly slow. The world was unimaginably vast, so even after his strength was completely restored and he could wrap them both in an orb of light and dash across mountains and valleys... They just never seemed to be any closer to their destination.<p>

"_Eurus' torch. This will allow you, if you wish, to journey to Olympus much faster than if you chose to fly there yourself." _So it was taking months to go the other way, Fujin's voice chirping in his mind whenever they experienced an unexpected delay.

The god had told him that the torch only worked when it moved in the direction of Eurus' wind: from east to west across the world. Attempting to challenge this theory had only horribly burned his arm again and given Kagura a fierce headache. He would have shattered the useless trinket if she hadn't become so taken with it, snatching the rod away from him and putting up too much of a fuss for the destruction to be worthwhile.

"Stupid storm..." They were getting closer, but the storms in the middle of the world, along the steppes and mountains between east and west, made travel difficult. He could not fly easily through the cold blizzards, and her power was not enough to argue with a dominant wind whenever they encountered a storm cell. Usually this just meant that they would walk until the weather improved, but this time they had been caught over unforgiving peaks. They would make no progress by walking through this storm.

The fact that they had stopped again was not what irritated him, it was that they had been _made_ to stop. It was true that most of their waking hours were devoted to travel, and the direction was always east, but on such a long journey Sesshoumaru was not opposed to the idea or reality of rest: he would not return home completely exhausted. They rarely flew as fast as they could in the wind, and when they walked Sesshoumaru was as likely to stop and take note of something as Kagura.

He had worked too hard, sacrificed too much, to allow his pride unmitigated control over his actions anymore. Sesshoumaru had left the Western Lands because someone had removed the presence in the wind which he had come to value; the warmth and purpose behind its touch. He did not rebuke Kagura for touching him, but did not allow himself to instigate or encourage contact. The pleasure he took in her caresses was for himself alone, be it across his face, hands, or elsewhere, and those he returned were equally for his own enjoyment. The look in her eyes, the changes in her voice, the flush of her skin- it was all for him. No one else.

"You're shivering." But there were some changes, some sounds, which he did not value. When the woman's body was preoccupied with something that was _not_ him, Sesshoumaru could not reason with his jealousy. His voice was accusing and he immediately reprimanded himself for it.

"So glad you noticed." Kagura's temper always became miserable when she was uncomfortable, and being huddled up tightly inside this small cave seemed to count. He was standing just inside the rocky mouth, avoiding the flakes of snow as they were driven like darts through the cold air by the blizzard. Ice had formed on the floor near his feet, but despite the childishness of it, Sesshoumaru directed enough of his power into the black stone to melt most of the creeping water. He despised it, being surrounded by the mountain and the storm. But the cold was what he hated most, because it was trying to effect them.

Sesshoumaru continued to stand guard at the cave entrance. They had found the black opening just before the blizzard grew into something neither of them could overcome. He had sensed a demonic presence in the area as well, but it was not comparable to his own and had only come so close before turning and wandering elsewhere. It had been curious about them, but the large creature had not been hostile: Sesshoumaru was, and that had been enough to send it away. Perhaps it would find amusement in harassing whatever humans or lesser demons that might have been caught in the storm without shelter.

"No change yet?" Finally turning to look at her as she spoke, Kagura had abandoned the flaming torch in the corner after deeming it useless in her current plight against the cold. The rod could only burn at full strength and the flames weren't sustainable; she could sear her skin, not warm it.

"No." He had not seen her succumb to the elements like this, but they had been surrounded by snow and the beginning of the blizzard for several hours before the storm actually struck. She also didn't like storms nearly as much as she claimed to: he doubted she enjoyed being dragged up into them by the howling wind after experiencing the Kamikaze. But she had said that all wind demons experienced the same pull during foul weather, and maintained that it was not a terrible feeling.

"It can be exhilarating." She grumbled, as if she had heard his thoughts. "But not when I want to stay here- _stupid storm!_" Watching her jump to her feet, arms wrapped round her body, and stomp off until she was at the very back of the small cave left him with an unnatural feeling in his chest, one not related to petty jealousy. He cut out Tenseiga's senile humming as the broken sword babbled a series of nonsensical things, looking out at the storm again and deciding that it would continue to delay them for at least a few more hours.

Removing the broken sword from his side, he set the Tenseiga down on the cold stone and resumed his vigil... only to be interrupted a few minutes later by Bakusaiga. The sword goaded him but was unclear in its meaning, something about provision. _Tch_, what did it expect him to do? Stop the blizzard from trapping them here? There was nothing unnatural or demonic in the wind, nothing he could expect to attack and stop. So should he make her walk and navigate the treacherous ice of these mountains instead? They would spend more time climbing down than moving east, a waste of time and effort.

But there was still something the swords wanted from him, and glancing back into the cave he understood that her needs were connected to it. Even as he watched her, Kagura had shut her eyes and was slowly turning onto her side away from him, her skin losing colour- the opposite of the effect he liked. When he turned to get a better look at her, his leg cut across a cold eddy of wind that had been unnaturally invading the cave. His jealous instincts came roaring back to life.

'_It is not the cold making her ill.'_ The sheathed Tenseiga in hand, he stepped away from the entrance and felt the wind pushing against his back, gusts moving past him and holding onto her where Kagura had turned away to ignore them. He came to a stop standing directly over her, already beyond irritated with the persistent wind.

"Why do you stay, Kagura?" She was pale and shivering violently, like her body was enduring great pain instead of mere cold and longing. When she opened one eye slowly and strained to look at him, the colour was a dull rose, not the usual livid crimson. "You are free."

"To stay." She said, choking around the words before she shut her eyes and rested her head back against the cold cave wall. "Free to stay, Sesshoumaru. I want to go, but... I want to stay." And be in pain like this, have herself syphoned off by a greedy wind that she wanted to be carried away with. He felt his eyes narrow as he watched her, and when he spoke he made the words sharp.

"Will every storm be like this?"

"No..." Was he to believe that this storm was just special then? "No, but when we reach home I... will know where you are. I will know how to fly with the wind and then come back."

"And you will return." After every storm she would vanish then, and after that she would seek him out?

"After every storm."

"_Tch._" He set Tenseiga against the wall near her head, followed by the Bakusaiga. Kagura closed her filmy eyes and didn't watch what he did next, the Demon Lord condensing just a bit of his energy into his fingertips before he whipped around and slashed the air with his claws. The green whip cut across the cave ceiling over the small entrance, and Kagura's sudden voice was drowned by the sound of shattering stone and collapsing snow.

The wind stopped blowing once the entrance was sealed, the storm still audible through the rock, but unable to penetrate the rubble. He took satisfaction in feeling the air still, his burnished eyes adjusting easily to the lack of light after a few moments. There was tension on the side of his leg, and he looked down past his fur to see her fingers gripping the white fabric of his pants.

"Sesshoumaru..." She was sitting up now, one hand holding onto him while the other was braced on the stone floor to keep her up. Her gaze was still unfocused, the demonic glow in her eyes faded and mild... but she was slowly beginning to recover now that the wind was no longer harassing her. Still pale, almost grey- a colour he did not like.

"I forbid you to fly away." He laid the restriction on her in a severe voice, "Until we return to the Western Lands, you are not to leave my side." She was staring up at him, as if she didn't understand the command or what it was supposed to mean. He would not enlighten her. Sesshoumaru continued standing until something changed in her eyes and he felt her begin to actually pull on his clothing, rather than just hang on. So he knelt, and let her other hand rise and grasp his sleeve.

"As you wish, my lord..." She turned on her hip, sitting up enough for her lips to brush over his as she agreed to his condition. Her body was still shivering, skin ashen and unpleasant against his as she reached for him, resting her hand against his neck while the Demon Lord curled a hand behind her head and neck, allowing his shoulders to be drawn in closer to her.

"Lay down." The storm would still take hours to blow over, he would use the time well.

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><p><strong>This is what I love about having the entire story finished and posted in increments, because I really hadn't noticed how their relationship went from what happened last chapter to completely blowing over the intimacy here. I didn't change the characters' behaviours or actions, but I completely forgot to add the intimate details in the background. And I finally gave in and had Sesshou sleep on Kagura, originally he just sat next to her and snoozed all night. Not fulfilling says I.<strong>

**Read and review! We're almost done!**


	17. The Demon Lord's Bride

**Room of Angels.**

**This chapter was completely re-written while I was overseas, and I like it a lot better. Totally an extra chapter that didn't need to be here, but meh, why not?**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind<strong>_

The Demon Lord's Bride

The currency of her Lord Sesshoumaru was fear. It took them a long time to finally reach the shore where the value of fear was properly recognized, but once they did he seemed quite willing to spend it on her behalf.

"A beautiful fan for a beautiful demon! Yes? You like that one? Please, take it- a gift! An honourable gift!"

"You mean you don't want me to pay for it?" She made her voice sweet and innocent, taking unnecessary pleasure in watching the worm-shaped demon in front of her sweat and whimper and pine.

They had come so far that finally their language, though not dominant, was recognized by the locals. To celebrate, Sesshoumaru had decided that he would no longer tolerate her worn-out clothing and accessories. Of course, he refused to take any responsibility for the increasingly hideous appearance of her kimono: obviously the claw marks and melted holes had _nothing_ to do with the Demon Lord.

They had found a tiny gap between one world and the spirit realm, a tear which he easily exploited to bring her to this demonic haven. It took the appearance of a bustling human city, red lanterns lighting the perpetual night air as all sorts of meats sizzled and cooked inside tiny booths and stalls. Other tables sold herbs, or pets, or jewelry or swords or... anything. It felt like a festival, and Kagura had never seen so many demons congregated in one spot before who weren't all trying to kill one another.

His presence, of course, caused crowds to part immediately despite not knowing who he was. Sesshoumaru didn't follow her as she browsed the silk-demon's wares, but he lingered close enough to the stall for the larvae to understand how _important_ it was that Kagura leave pleased. It surprised her how calm he was within such a crowded market. His senses must have been overloaded by the scents and sounds and sights of the city, but thus far he had remained as stoic and unflappable as if they were moving through a forest.

"All three of my hearts, fair lady, would break if it were anything but a gift." Oh, disgusting little creature! If she hadn't been so honestly impressed with the piece in her hand, with its exquisite ebony fingers and a fine length of green silk... she wouldn't have been able to stomach his slimy appearance and gross flattery. But she _did _like the fan, so he _did_ get to live.

"Do any of them even know who you are?" She asked later, as the two of them meandered through the festive streets. Kagura tempted to simply cling to his arm as they walked through the dark thoroughfares, but knew it was better if she, as usual, remained a half-step behind him. She entertained herself instead by playing with her new fan as Eurus' rod hung from her belt, testing the lock and give of the weapon. Sesshoumaru had already taken it upon himself to destroy the old makeshift fan she had crafted, her Demon Lord taking a bit too much pleasure in the act.

"No." Meaning they only respected power, and that, really, suited her for now. Besides, even if he refused to smile or appear pleased in any way, she knew he must have enjoyed watching as his mere presence effected the crowds. Some lesser demons even bowed in confusion as they passed. But the best part was when a foolish toad-headed vendor tried approaching her in the Demon Lord's wake. He stumbled up with a tray of baubles for sale, and Sesshoumaru's green whip shattered the display as a warning not to pester them. Yes, he loved to be in control. He was basking in the admiration and fear, gaining credit with every step he took.

"There." Hm? Stopping when he did and looked to the left, Kagura's eyes followed and slid past the dilapidated little building at first. Then her gaze came back, and in its place was a quaint stone structure with a few silk curtains hanging from the outside awning. Huh, so it was an enchanted premise. The magic was not terribly potent, but there was an illusion over the building to make it appear run-down to the unobservant. He had located the silk vendor in a similarly abrupt manner, and, pleased with his intuition the first time, Kagura quickly followed now.

"_...?_" More candles in red paper lanterns lit the inside of the shop, just like the ones hanging over the street. Kagura stepped inside after the Demon Lord and took a moment to quickly look around at what was offered. The same illusion as outside persisted in here: her eyes roamed over dusty, faded bolts of cloth and falling cupboards and shelves... then swept back a second time to see exquisite silks, fine black lacquer, and gold draconic designs on the walls.

The only presence in the room took a moment to form properly, but came from the small demon woman hunched over a wide table that, again, first looked slanted and broken, then revealed itself as sturdy and well-constructed. The fabric on the table, however, did not respond the same way. The matron's hands were buried in drab grey wool, and no matter how long Kagura looked at or tried to study it, the piece didn't transform into anything else. Moving up from the seamstress's hidden hands Kagura found herself watching a worn, grey face with empty black eyes. It reminded her of a crude mask.

"The woman requires clothing." Kagura stopped looking around as Sesshoumaru spoke, the seamstress putting down her work and slowly rising.

"She is _wearing_ clothing." The woman's voice was dry and dusty, her mouth barely moving. The sound made Kagura think of tearing fabric, distant and dry as the seamstress's attention shifted between the two of them. The sound of her feet was also interesting to the sorceress: several tapping sounds repeating endlessly. Kagura didn't understand why until the woman appeared from around her table with several thin grey spindles holding her up under her drab blue and grey dress. Spider demon. "Wait outside, Demon Lord."

"I will wait here." The spider stopped advancing, turning her abysmal gaze to Kagura for a moment, then back to the Lord, and finally she turned around.

"Find someone else." Ooh, he-!

"Wait-" She stepped up and felt Sesshoumaru's eyes on her back, the spider-woman's attention returning to her. Kagura found herself uncomfortable having to endure both of them at the same time, and made up her mind quickly to decide which way to go. Glancing over her shoulder at him, Kagura levelled a haughty look at the dog and watched as his expression completely refused to change. Forbidden to leave his side; he couldn't be _serious _about those exact words.

Finally, he did step outside, and his constitution didn't change enough to make her fear his anger upon her return. She looked back at the spider when she heard the drumming taps start up again.

"Clothes from a captor... and creator..." There was a tug on her sleeve and Kagura saw that the demoness' hands were actually more long, spindly grey legs to match the ones hidden under her body. One tiny foot was tugging on the blue kimono, something she had worn since her birth. Kagura preferred not to think of it as something from Naraku and stopped with those thoughts as another foot reached under her sleeve. When it touched the wool layer the seamstress' leg stopped moving. "A garment of... unskilled freedom." That was... nicer than how Sesshoumaru repeatedly described it.

"All vile. Disrobe." What- just-? In here? "Disrobe, and follow." The spider-woman gave her instructions, then silently turned and began to tap away, passing through a thin screen of silk which led to a second room between the shelves of cloth. Creepy...

_'And this is why she made him wait outside...'_ Maybe... maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.

Torn between feeling confident and humiliated, Kagura placed her fan and rod on the work-table, followed by the feathers from her hair- things she wanted to keep. The comb, belt, earrings and kimono were from Naraku, and the middle wool layer was ugly and uncomfortable. Still, of the three layers the rough white one was the least hated of the bunch, so after she stepped out of the others Kagura quickly snatched the wool up again and pulled it on over her skin.

So what if it was just some old spider woman? So what if she clothed women for a living, and was seeing nothing new? That didn't matter to Kagura, what mattered was not walking around completely exposed. But after stepping through the silk into the dark room beyond, she swore loudly as she heard the _real _sound of ripping fabric and felt the wool as it was torn off her body.

"Alright you've made your point!" She shouted, clasping her hands over her chest and glaring into the dark. Dragging her loose hair around until it covered a portion of her chest, Kagura kept one arm where it was for now just in case. It was pitch black in this room, and her bare feet told her only that she was walking on the same musty floorboards as at the front of the house. Taking a few more steps forward, maybe she was going down a hall?

"_Watch your step."_ The spider woman's voice was close enough that Kagura almost jumped, but she controlled her reaction enough that there was just a creepy flush of goosebumps around her exposed back and sides. What little light was available suddenly cut out, a heavier piece of cloth rustling as it covered the door through which she'd walked to get here. Kagura was about to say something, to complain loudly, when more light began to leak into the darkness only a moment later. She wasn't sure of the colour; white, but almost blue, or maybe a bit red, but it came filtering through the room's contents.

Long drapes from an unseen ceiling formed with the light, channelling it from some unseen source. The floor became more properly defined where the boards were covered with discarded cloth and long tangles of thread. Three tiny spider feet together were about the right size for a hand, touching Kagura's palm and helping her up a large step that would have otherwise tripped her.

"_Stay."_ She was standing on a pedestal. The exposure felt even worse once she realized that she was up to be ogled at, but maybe that explained why the chamber was so dark. She could hear the whisper of silk, and there was the sound of cotton sheets breathing over one another, then another short, higher hiss of a fabric she didn't know.

"_Wear this first."_ The material she was handed felt sheer and uncomfortable. Kagura's mind went back a few years to things she had seen in Thrace: the white fabric so many brides had worn in their hair- lace? Yes, this felt like lace, nearly not there and almost rough over her skin as Kagura pulled on the short robe and held the belt-less garment closed over her stomach. She didn't feel covered in this, but was quiet as she waited for whatever would come next. First layers were always insubstantial.

"_Red is a good colour..."_ There was a sound of something shifting and Kagura looked down off the dressing stand at where a pile of discarded cloth was rustling about. A tall mirror resting in an ornate frame rose up off the floor, slowly righting itself before Kagura jumped at the feeling of two tiny spider feet tugging back on the shoulders of the robe.

"_Vanity and lust desire attention..." _The material gave and changed shape under the seamstress's touch, falling almost half-way down Kagura's back and hugging her upper arms instead of her shoulders. The top of her bosom was exposed before a thick sash found its way around her waist. The belt moved her hands out of the way and quickly tightened as it looped around her, squeezing her bust up and shaping her waist restrictively.

In the mirror, Kagura looked up and saw herself and, given how little material was actually on her body, what she assumed was an _idea_ of what the completed dress would look like. She almost shrieked: scarlet hems down knee-long sleeves, the layers open in the front all the way up to her thighs and down from her shoulders until the folds ran up against the wide obi the seamstress was still tying. Patterns of love-birds and peaches, red threads dangling from tiny silk flowers.

"Absolutely not!" She shouted, hands whipping up and covering her chest defensively. Perhaps in _private_ she would look like that, but walking around? Everywhere? All the time? She wasn't Jakotsu! "I might be wearing his scent, but I'm not his little concubine!" The tugging on her dress stopped, and her reflection looked bemused for a moment, the mirror-Kagura tilting her head to the side curiously before shrugging and vanishing into darkness again.

"_Perhaps it should be indigo then..." _Kagura swore sharply as the modified robe was ripped off her body with a fast, painless motion, the fabric tossed through the air to land in a heap on the dark floor. This time she was given cotton. The sorceress recognized the weight and texture as she pulled on the far more decent covering and let herself take a few moments to be comfortable and clothed. But that really was all she had time for.

This time the seamstress tugged up around the neck, her spindly legs reaching around Kagura's front in too familiar a manner and pulling the cloth further and further across her torso. She didn't stop until the fold was almost hidden under her arm, the collar pulled almost to her chin and hugging the back of her neck below the skull. She already knew she didn't like it even without the mirror.

"I'm not a nanny or a ward either." In the mirror her reflection had returned, smothered in layers of violet patterned with gold flowers. Her shape was lost under the mound of fabric, arms forming part of the large cloth blob looking back at her. Human princesses dressed like this, they also couldn't walk very far at a time or do anything but play music and hold children. It was completely wrong.

"_...Then you are a very strange wife."_ Wife? _"We shall try the yellow next."_ The cotton was removed from her body and Kagura placed her hands on her hips irritably, the mirror black again as the spider sought out the yellow fabric.

"I'm not his wife!" The rustling stopped, and Kagura saw her nude reflection slowly form in the mirror in front of her, properly showing her stance and frustration. Her body was a slender thing, long-limbed and tall like her creator, but now that she could look at it properly for the first time since his death, Kagura noticed how it had changed.

Her skin, though still pale and smooth, had more colour now and was no longer that deathly white Naraku had been: not the colour of bone or a corpse. Modest breasts, round, firm and sized to fit just-so under a certain Demon Lord's hands. Just between her breasts was a very small, faded scar positioned directly over her heart: the place from which Naraku had first removed and then restored the beating organ. Her back was still scarred, but the spider was unrecognizable and Sesshoumaru never commented on the altered texture of the flesh all down her spine and sides.

"Then what are you?" The seamstress's voice was much closer now than before, and as Kagura watched her reflection the short demoness appeared in the mirror just behind and below her, apparently standing on the floor behind the pedestal. The question gave her pause though, and as she stood there silently the seamstress began to speak, her many legs hidden from view for the time being. "You share no blood, you wear his scent, you obey him and he protects you. In fact he has remained, brooding, outside my shop since you made him leave."

"Lord Sesshoumaru does not brood." It was a blatant lie but Kagura spoke with conviction, folding her arms over her chest and then running one hand through her twisted, tangled black hair. Of course the Demon Lord brooded, that was practically _all_ he did unless he was fighting or fu- err... The seamstress was still watching her, expression vacant despite the curiosity in the voice, the spider straightening her bent spindles so she began to rise up a little, _'arms' _still behind her back.

"I'm..." She was his, that was all Sesshoumaru ever said and Kagura accepted it, even went so far as to enjoy it sometimes. "You could say I..." But _property?_ Was that all she was supposed to go by? She knew she wasn't his equal but that didn't make her his servant, and he had acknowledged that she was free to, or at least capable of, coming and going from his side as she pleased. "We haven't decided." This was humiliating. "Stop smiling." The seamstress' expression in the mirror still hadn't changed, but Kagura was convinced now that she was simply wearing a mask to hide whatever her real face looked like. She could feel the spider smiling at her.

"What of his is green?" Huh?

"Nothing?" What a strange question, Kagura actually looked over her shoulder at where the tiny demoness was standing. "He doesn't wear that colour." The spider tilted her head, then moved two of her tiny legs around to show her something. Resting on one little foot was her new green fan, and hanging from the other on a few strands of spider-silk were her earrings and comb. The latter set were held up a little as the spider spoke.

"These you wanted to get rid of. But this-" the fan, "-is new from the market. Why did you choose green?" That was still a strange question, but Kagura blinked a few times and turned back to the mirror, trying to answer.

"I guess... I thought of grass and leaves." Boreas' mountain had been so barren and cold. Yes, Kagura loved the wind but the highlands had been such a dead landscape. "But Sesshoumaru doesn't wear green, you saw him. He wears white, red, and yellow."

"Colour is not restricted to cloth." The seamstress answered, sounding old and stuffy. "Are those three his true colours? Every display of power is white or red or yellow?" Kagura gave a rough sigh and shook her head, frustrated again.

"No. The Bakusaiga attacks with green energy- in fact all of his attacks are green: his acids, his lash, all of it. And Tenseiga's barrier is blue." Anything that didn't attack was blue; when he flew at his fastest, or transformed. When he'd broken out of Boreas' ice he had been wrapped in three distinct kinds of energy... "His colours are green, white, and blue." The seamstress was smiling again, then both reflections vanished from the mirror.

"A _bride._" She was not his-! "_Try this one next?_"

There was a certain texture to silk that Kagura didn't feel in the cloth that was handed to her, it was incredibly light, but she almost didn't feel the slippery sheer garment as it was set in her hand. Slippery, but not greasy, it whispered between her fingers and when she pinched and rubbed the folds together curiously, they almost sang. The material was bizarre but she sighed and did as she was told, quickly wrapping the short robe around her body. She was frustrated both the lack of tie around her waist and the fabric's luxurious tendency to fall open and slip past itself.

Kagura saw herself reappear in the mirror, but she was only wearing the under-layer still, stance identical to her real one where she was holding the fabric shut- blue? It was very pale though, like clouds.

"_Loyalty, and an impenetrable devotion make up the very core."_ In her reflection the fabric was woven so finely that the sheer material was almost see-through, a shift that was meant for comfort and nothing else. A belt of silver, short, thin, and easy to tie around her waist followed.

"_Patience is important when accepting change into your life. It must be graceful, durable, and express modesty."_ Thick white silk, patterned with silver, wrapped itself around her body next, tied with more of the metallic silver. The white was long enough to reach her ankles, with sleeves that were wide and stretched down past her wrists. The layer was finished with a collar of folded cloth that extended half-way up her throat, but it wasn't as smothering as the old nanny-dress. When she tilted her head from side to side, the fabric didn't rub or bother her- and where it did, the seamstress gave a simple tug to get rid of it.

"_Then the forgiveness for faults, but not __**too**__ much forgiveness. Virtue must always protect, never hinder."_ Green now, thicker and more tightly fitted than the sweeping white. This layer was short and only came half-way down her thighs, the sleeves were also small, just capping her shoulders and spreading no further down. The white had been patterned lightly with silver clouds and star-bursts, this one was detailed with leaves picked out in a darker green.

"_And all of it tempered with honesty in expression and emotion. The only difference between a maiden, a bride, and a wife is her status, not herself."_ A black sash wove itself around her waist and pulled the bottom layers together snugly, the sorceress prepared to be squeezed like before, but the black didn't try to choke her. Kagura's fan was produced a moment later by the spider, and she snapped it open easily as she looked herself over in the mirror.

She approved of the matching green between the gown and fan, noting her bare feet on the pedestal and the Spider Demon hovering in the corner again. Kagura's long black hair was still free and hanging in tangles around her shoulders and face, so the look wasn't complete, but turning a little this way and that, she liked what she saw. Kagura could see how the silks hugged her sides and hips, the lines slightly broken at the transition from green to white, but in a way that felt flattering to her eyes.

"It's not a kimono..." She noted, but that had been obvious as she was dressed. "But I like it." Touching the sash around her waist, Kagura could feel far more fabric than she'd originally thought, so she imagined that meant it could be unfolded and worn wider, like an obi. Good, she wasn't going to travel or fight with different outfits in tow, but if this one could be worn different ways... She liked that.

"Kagura." Ah, now for the real test. It surprised her that he hadn't simply walked through the silk sectioning off this room from the front, but when she looked in the direction of his voice Kagura could see Sesshoumaru's outline clearly through the silk-covered doorway. And his voice? He sounded displeased. _Very_ displeased. Maybe he'd stop brooding so much once there were demons to kill.

"Are you shy?" She answered boldly, ignoring the tiny seamstress as the spider tapped her way over to the silk curtain and drew it aside with one long, slender leg. "Come in, we're finished." She turned around in the mirror again, fan still open as she admired the length of the gown. It wouldn't trail over the ground when she walked, so she'd actually be able to travel and move in it. "_Well?_"

Looking away from the mirror and turning slowly now for his benefit, Sesshoumaru didn't spare the seamstress a glance as he stepped through the doorway. He crossed over to her with only a brief glance around the room, stopping a few feet away from the pedestal and mirror. His yellow eyes were watching, studying, evaluating, and the silence just stretched before he finally spoke.

"Fix your hair." She sniffed the air irritably at the demand, snapping her fan shut before she reached around with her hands and gathered her hair up, holding it between her fingers as she faced the mirror. He was watching her, not her reflection, miscalculating how much she could see as Kagura caught his eyes roaming openly down her back and sides for the first time, drinking in the curves of her waist and hips. So it wasn't just his _vanity_ that wanted to see her well-dressed...

She didn't care if he saw her smiling, or when the smile turned into a grin. When Kagura dropped her hair down her back again he scowled at her, her fan fluttering next to her lips and nose coyly. When he reached out with something in his hand she turned around, her smile fading as she saw a small silk pouch cradled in his fingers.

_'A gift..?'_ She'd never... he... Kagura took it before he could begin growling at the wait, carefully pulling the gold draw-string open and stopping when she saw what was inside.

"...Thank you." Saying the words softly, she held the small white comb in the palm of her hand, one to replace the green one she had worn for as long as she'd been alive. This one was carved from a large demon's bone, not an uncommon material, but set along the spine was a nest of rounded yellow topaz resting within the white petals of a flower- actually silk. Looking up, Sesshoumaru was already walking away, but she didn't mind.

"He... didn't like it...?" She had forgotten the seamstress was there, glancing down at the spider as she looked into the mirror and pulled her hair back up again, slipping the wide teeth through the black strands and twisting so it all remained in place. There, perfect.

"He liked it." The spider didn't make any comment about purchase or payment, and Kagura didn't wait for her to do so. She just turned with a hand on her dress, just making sure it really was short enough for her not to worry about tripping. "If he didn't, you'd be dead." This comment... didn't phase the seamstress. The tiny spider merely shrugged what amounted to her shoulders and drifted absently over to her silks again, Kagura prying herself from her reflection as she hurried to catch up with her Demon Lord. If she wasn't careful, his temper would drive him out of the city without her.

But that was okay, she was a _bride._

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><p><strong>Two more chapters!<strong>


	18. The Western Sea

**Iris, Brothers in Arms, Diamond, then finished off with some With You by AAA, Dearest, and Beautiful Memories. Edited to Kuon no Kawa by Alan.**

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind <strong>_

The Western Sea

"I love you."

The sky was dark, a nearly-full moon hanging overhead, surrounded by stars. They had left the demonic city behind a week ago and were moving through the natural living world again, finally reaching the last leg of their journey. They had been required to move north for some time instead of just east, but now here, standing on the final shore...

If he really tried, Sesshoumaru thought he could smell the very edge of the Western Lands.

"...Why would you say that?" Kagura was sitting at his feet, the two of them looking down towards the water from the rolling hills which descended down into the sand. There was no more grass beyond this point, a single bunch of white flowers marking the spot where they had chosen to rest for the last time. Slowly, the Demon Lord looked down at where the woman was sitting, expecting an answer.

"Because it's true, so I thought I should say it at least once." Her response ended with a shrug, the white and green of her new clothes still capturing his eyes when he least expected it. She was reclining on her hip, legs bent and together as she leaned on one arm. The fingers of her other hand were holding her fan open, the silk ripples catching the sea air as she breathed it in. She wasn't ignoring him, but it was clear that she didn't expect him to speak again either. Sesshoumaru remained silent as he forced his eyes back out to the sea.

Now he was distracted, the scent of his lands beyond his grasp as he couldn't focus in quite the same way. She should not have spoken up so suddenly. There had been time enough for this discussion before now.

"I-" He heard her chuckle quickly, allowing himself to be cut off.

"Oh, don't explain, Sesshoumaru, you're not the sort to-"

"-ran." He interrupted her to return the favour, telling himself not to feel rage over the minor insult. She didn't speak right away, but he could feel her eyes on him, curious.

"...What?" Curious, and perhaps a little confused.

"When you died, I ran to see you." He had flown first as he normally did, but had then focused his energy until he was an orb of light, travelling between the wasteland where he faced Naraku's heart to the meadow where she had been dying. He had only walked for a short time, she had been too exhausted by the miasma to notice.

_'Do not look at her.' _He kept his eyes on the sea, the one boundary he had never expanded his boarders beyond. This was the same sea, seen from the western side.

"After your spirit had followed me for three years, I went to Fujin." Do not look at her, he was above such things as reliance on a weaker being. "To learn what was wrong with you, and why I knew you were there, but would not answer me."

"Se-"

"Shut up." She stopped talking, hopefully for good this time. "After the Kamikaze I _allowed_ myself to become Fujin's tool, fulfilling his wishes and following his orders." All to prevent being passed over again in favour of the Half-breed. His pride hadn't been able to handle either reality, but at least the path he had chosen had allowed him to fight. The problem with that- "When I lost against Boreas, my duties and obligations to my territory were forsaken, and have lain abandoned all this time." And that absence still hadn't ended yet; he was still standing here, on a foreign shore in a western land, one that was not his by virtue of birth or power.

Kagura was standing now, but remained silent and did not touch him. Her presence, however, was something he found irritating: that the cause of so much disgrace would dare stand next to him. That she could claim affection for him- _love?_, when she had destroyed the person that he had always been and everything that had defined him. Tenseiga was broken, and his lands no longer existed.

Turning, he found her not directly beside him, but to the right and back a little. Kagura was still on his right side as she always was, as if she thought herself some sort of asset to him. Something he valued and treasured, or someone he wanted with him at all times.

_But she was_.

"I will never tell you that I love you, Kagura." Although simply refusing to say it wouldn't make it go away. He had tried that already, he had spent five years ignoring it and then when it had finally gone away it was all he had thought of and craved until he brought her back. Until she was restored to him.

"I will never say-" His lungs would not expand properly to bring enough air into his chest, his voice growing lower and lower as he spoke, breaths short and rough as he walked up to her and grasped the white and green collars of her dress with one hand, hoisting her up as he loomed over her. "-that you are desired, beautiful, or precious." Kagura's red eyes were fixed on him, wide as she had one arm wedged between her body and his chest, keeping them apart as he growled the vow.

She was nervous, uneasy, and surprised, but not _scared_. Her defiance just aggravated his temper, and he wanted her to feel how much he hated her. He wanted her to know how hateful he felt towards this woman who he was unable to harm or abandon. He was tethered to her and he _despised _both the knowledge and feeling.

For some reason, despite his hold on her clothing his claws had failed to pierce the fabric, and this only served to make him angrier. The cloth wouldn't tear, or burn, or rip, not even when he pushed his hand under the black sash around her thin waist and attacked the knot with his claws. The tie gave, but whatever horror he had expected from her never appeared on Kagura's face. Even when he moved his clawed grasp from her collar up around her slender throat, claws threatening the back of her neck and drawing a few thin ribbons of blood, her scent only made her seem willing, almost eager.

"But _you_ are _mine." _He had never, not once, touched her first. Not since she had come back from the dead had he allowed himself the weakness of reaching out and taking hold of her body. He had refused every natural instinct he possessed, denied himself every time he had wanted her but she had, only maybe, wanted him.

Kagura knew this, her eyes shut now and hands pulling off the tie around his waist, letting his swords fall to the grass before she tried reaching around for his armour. She wasn't ignoring his hold on her neck, working faster once he pulled her close enough that her hands could actually reach the clasps and ties of the cuirass. The whole time her breaths were weak, eyes shut with her voice fluttering past her lips without saying anything.

'_I hate this woman._' It _felt_ like hate, the attention and possessiveness, the need for control and dominance. '_But I do not __**hate**__ her...' _The desire to protect, the need to be aware of her presence and condition, the lack of regret, and the knowledge that if he could earn back seventeen years of waiting and captivity, if he could go back to that day on the cliffs or the morning after the Kamikaze... He would do this, all of this, again.

"_You belong to me."_ She did, and he could hear it now as she tried nodding her head within his hold, her whispers making sense now. The words _'I do, I do, I do,' _were dropping from her lips before he kissed them and bit her, letting his fangs cut her mouth and spill blood for him to taste and swallow. Her eyes were still closed but Sesshoumaru kept his open, aware of his aura rising and his demonic energy wrapping around them both, blue and white and green.

The short, outer layer of her gown had been shed already and was laying on the grass by her feet, his armour still in place around his torso as she became paralysed and stopped moving. Venom from his claws and fangs began to pump into her blood, causing her first to become rigid and then slowly collapse against him. He pushed her back with his free left hand, more venom beading across his claws as he pushed the thick white silk down off her shoulder, letting himself cut her skin in two long, curved slashes over the collarbone before doing the same on the other side.

No one, human, demon, spirit, or god, would come near this piece of land as he marked her. His power wrapped them both in dazzling light as it raged higher, scoring her shoulders as he let go of her neck. Keeping the paralysed wind demon in place with one hand as he pulled the other one back, he refused to hesitate before driving two fingers straight into the middle of her chest.

_'If she dies from the poison-'_ Kagura's eyes snapped open with a scream when he stabbed her, his fingers only punching through up to the second knuckle, but there was a burst of toxic green that went with the wound. _'-or if she dies from the yoki-'_ the demonic energy he was letting out, the storm of white, blue, and green that focused in on her as he removed his fingers from the bleeding hole. He let go of Kagura and watched her stunned face as her legs collapsed and she hit the scarred ground on her side, the energy he'd unleashed funnelling down directly into her chest, saturating her body. _'-then she is not fit to be my mate.'_

So he waited, watching as the light began to drain out of the night sky, and the vicious effects of his power on the smoking ground were revealed by the looming moon. But he kept his eyes off her stunned face, flicking the blood off his hands before it could be absorbed into his skin. He had not wanted to do this before now, and there had simply been no appropriate place or time until they reached the edge of the western sea. He would either return to his lands now and reclaim them with a new bride, or she would die here and he would allow himself no further distractions.

_'If she dies, it will be her punishment for wasting my time.'_

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><p>He watched the sky begin to lighten in the east as he waited for her fate to be decided. Sesshoumaru ignored the wind that blew in off the water, the element repeatedly swirling around unnaturally to strike him. But the gusts merely buffeted his armour where it was once again bound up his side. He had not retrieved either of his swords yet though, and Kagura was still holding the yellow and indigo sash he used to hold the pair in place.<p>

Rather than stand there and watch what became of her within the storm of energy, the Demon Lord had moved down towards the beach, letting the scent of the salty ocean over-power his sense of her. Between the wind and the surf, he could focus on a myriad of sounds that blocked his awareness of her suffering. No gasping breaths or whimpers reached him, no clawing at the ground or even the scent of her body bleeding and breaking down. He could ignore everything going on behind him so long as he was standing at the sea. As the night wore on into daylight, the Demon Lord knew that he would simply look back once the sun had risen and see only the patch of grass where she had lain, and it would be done: this would all be over.

So when the sun was half-way over the horizon and he turned around, the Demon Lord didn't understand... why he could see only the grass.

_'She-?' _Even the flowers were gone, only the swords and his sash remaining on the ground as Sesshoumaru moved from the shore back to the hill- making himself walk. There was tension in his throat, a grip just below his jaw that he couldn't shake off. He could feel his yellow eyes opening a little wider, then a little more as his nose sampled the air and told him nothing. His energy, her blood, and then the salty wind blowing inland off the sea.

"Kagura-" _No._ This was not like when he had gone to her in the field, struck down by Naraku. This was not like when Rin had died, his quest for power interfering with his choices. This was not the same as Fujin, or the Kamikaze, or Boreas, this was not- _he_ had not-

"Bastard." _Fire!_

A swirling mass of white flame from Eurus' rod dropped down over his head, and Sesshoumaru had to break out through the inferno's side before he could be burned by it. He landed in a crouch with his hand lowered to snatch up the swords- that were not there anymore? A blast of wind and red flower petals caught him from the right and the Demon Lord was sent hurtling back towards the shore, his feet skimming over the surface of the water before he righted himself in the air and came to a stop. After that it was an intoxicating wave of her scent on the warm air, and the distinct sense that he was being left behind.

_'Bakusaiga and Tenseiga, she has them.'_ And she was flying down low to the water, folded into the air and invisible as she fled east. But she was still something he could track and chase as he launched himself forward through the air, pushing for speed. He could sense the swords wrapped up in the wind, gaining on them quickly with one hand ready to reach out and grasp whichever one he came closest to first.

"Bad dog!" With the wind in his face and blowing past his ears, the Demon Lord was blindsided when Kagura's foot connected with his head from above, his body tumbling into the water as the cold sea shot through his fur and clothes, shocking his skin. He remained under the surface as he fought to understand what had just happened, holding his breath as he kept moving, allowing raw will to propel him through the blue screen. Looking up through the salt, he recognized her movements and the mixing of energies that meant she was holding the swords herself now- not sending them ahead as a decoy. He had fallen for a _fake?_

_'Bad dog?'_ Is that what she'd said before kicking him down here? _'Very well then.'_ Giving in to the adrenaline moving through his veins, and the urge to test his new mate, Sesshoumaru ignored the stinging sensation of the salt as his eyes widened and red crossed his vision.

His true form ripped itself from the choppy water, white surf rising up with him and clinging to his fur and teeth- his jaws open as he tried to snap his fangs around her agile form. He missed her green and white body by little enough that he _felt_ the silk slip through his teeth. The Demon Lord was undeterred as a blunt gust of wind struck his left eye, watching her spiral straight up into the air ahead of him. He followed her against the blue sky, mouth open as he ignored the saturated colours overhead and just chased her scent.

She merged into and out of the wind several times rapidly, dropping decoy bundles of petals and energy behind her that he simply ignored. When Kagura abruptly shot herself around in a wide arc, his large body wasn't able to follow as easily as he wanted, and he let out an enraged growl as he twisted in the air to cut her off. She appeared briefly near the end of his snout and was gone again, her light weight connecting with the back of his neck just below the base of his skull.

He could hear her laughing as her hands clung to his fur, the Demon Lord levelling out in the air and speeding into the eastern sunrise. He continued like that for a while, long enough that he felt Kagura begin to shift and loosen her grip on him.

"The next time you-" And then he swung his shoulders around and rolled suddenly through the air, not stopping until he heard her shriek once and let go. His form began to morph as soon as her fingers slipped from his fur, everything a blur of blue sky and sea, the light of his aura obscuring the horizon before he saw her green bodice and lunged.

There was no way she would fall until she struck the water, but Kagura hadn't recovered from being thrown off his back before his arms were around her shoulders and hooked under her knees. Bakusaiga and Tenseiga were tied together and wrapped up in his sash, held close against her chest and safe enough that Sesshoumaru could ignore them for now.

"Sesshoumaru!" His eyes snapped shut as he touched his forehead down to hers, Kagura smiling and laughing up at him. The wind was pulling strands of her hair out of her comb's grip, the locks brushing against his skin as he took her in, arms holding on tightly.

"Be quiet." His scent was no longer something varnished over hers, a few threads of white, blue, and green now woven into her unique pattern and linking her to him. Her fingertips brushed over his marks, and without looking he was aware that the fuchsia had darkened to a deep maroon to represent her.

Pulling her up a little higher in his arms, he could feel Kagura smiling as he nuzzled her gently, the bridge of his nose locked against hers, faces very close and the corner of her lips brushing his. He enjoyed her scent, and paid attention to how and where she hung onto him.

He didn't kiss her as he began to rise through the air, still flying east towards their destination. He didn't need to look where he was going either, just turned them into the warm sunlight and the distant scent of home. The wind joined them soon, helping push him through the air with a bit more speed and wrapping him in more warmth. He could smell flower petals...

"It's rare, seeing you smile..." She said softly, letting the moment last a bit longer before they slowly pulled apart. Kagura remained in his arms though, her touch sliding from his cheek down along his jaw and chin until she finally folded her hands over the bound swords. She had her head resting against his shoulder, his fur pressed behind her back.

"I am not smiling." He didn't hesitate long before answering her, his gold eyes rising from where he was watching her hands move. He adjusted his course now according to the other scents coming to him on the wind- towards the smell of earth and stone.

"You were." Her voice was smug, and as he looked down at her again Kagura had her eyes closed and was curling her fingers against his chest, over the cuirass. "When you recovered over the water and started chasing your precious swords... I've never seen you smile quite like that." He did not remember smiling.

"You must have imagined it."

"Mm..." A quiet moment followed the sound, then she stroked his chest with her finger again. "Warn me before you do that next time, Sesshoumaru." She sounded tired as she made the comment, nuzzling up against his skin before he shifted his hold on her again so she was up high enough to reach his throat. Kagura wrapped her arm around the back of his neck and shoulder, her hand spreading through his hair to hold the left side of his face, tugging his head closer so she could kiss his cheek and jaw, lips playing just under his ear. He didn't warn the affection away with a growl, just closed his eyes again and let himself lean into the warm caress instead, feeling her lips smile against his skin.

"There will be no next time." His hold on her tightened yet again, and he let it stay that way. He had marked her and Kagura had survived it, so he would not have to do it again. She remained curled up against him silently, her one hand carefully pressing down and rubbing the place between her breasts and collar bone where he'd driven his clawed fingers in. At least the mark would cover that scar on her chest from Naraku toying with her heart.

Kagura murmured something against his neck after that, but Sesshoumaru didn't put any effort into trying to decode her words. If she wasn't going to speak clearly, then he wasn't going to answer. It made the journey feel like it lasted longer when she remained silent, possibly asleep after the experience, but he had no intention of waking her just yet. Her body had endured a shock: it was better for her to recover now in the air rather than try to find the time for it after they landed. Besides, it would take a few days for them to cross the sea together, and he was fine with carrying her for a short leg of it. He would, however, expect her to fly on her own once her strength recovered.

Watching the horizon again, it was too soon to hope to see the haze of land, but as he slowly dropped in altitude... there. Just for a moment, the barest snatch on the edge of the wind...

'_Home...' _And something else...

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><p><strong>I'm not gonna lie, I got really tired of seeing fics with these two where the official marking or mating happened during a sex scene. Yes, I <em>get<em> that that's just how things work with animals, but I wanted to go for something that was less instinctual and more intentional. Sesshou's all about being rational!**

****And this chapter was SUPPOSED TO BE THE END, but it isn't. One more after this. I just kept coming up with content I really wanted to write, and this was a writing/character project so I just had to do it. I've been wanting to have the scene in the air since back in chapter 2- so screw you, page count! I got what I wanted!**  
><strong>

**Read and review guys! Read and review!**


	19. Epilogue: What Things Have Become

**With You (AAA), The Voice Within, Beautiful.**

**So! As this is the final chapter, thank you very, very much for reading and reviewing along the way! I hope to see some of you in the sequel project. The epilogue is short to mirror the prologue, in fact I really just took the prologue and... well, you'll see.**

**As for the sequel: that beauty is known as _To Make Things Right_, and there's more information it that on my profile and in the ending AN after the credits. **

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><p><em><strong>Restoring the Wind <strong>_

Epilogue: What Things Have Become

Seventeen years. It was a long time: Sesshoumaru had been asleep for much of it, but she knew he was still aware of the difference it made for Kagura. So many months after they had left that forsaken mountainside she had finally asked him what had become of the Half-breed and his friends. Even if Sesshoumaru's knowledge had been out of date, he had answered her as well as he cared to.

Rin had remained in the human village, and the monk and demon-slayer had wed and begun a large family, three children, expecting a fourth the last time he had checked in with the girl. Kagome had returned from her strange world, and she had given the Half-breed a son- the mere mention of either was enough to turn Sesshoumaru's nose however. Half-breed was bad enough, but quarter seemed worse for the Demon Lord.

There had been concern about the mixture of the priestess' blood with Inuyasha's demonic heritage, Sesshoumaru stating flatly that the child, by now, had either accidentally purified its demonic side or had killed itself trying to cope with two deeply conflicted natures. Either way, the would-be uncle seemed more interested in ignoring the existence of the child and any possible siblings he possessed: he wouldn't even tell her the boy's name, and when Kagura mused about herself becoming an aunt Sesshoumaru bristled visibly.

In the twelve _long_ years since he had left Sesshoumaru assumed that his lands had been torn apart by demonic tribes both bordering on and contained within the old territorial lines. He was not concerned with the prospect of fighting his mother- in fact he seemed convinced that most of his land would now be under her control, with an emphasis on her taking his palace for her own. Sesshoumaru also confirmed that Inuyasha's small forest and village did technically border directly on his lands, but Kagura knew better than to ask if he thought the Hall-breed had tried extending his influence into the Demon Lord's territory.

The only border her knew had not changed was the one they arrived on: the sea. The smell of the brine was thick on both of them after four long days of flying and steadily less conversation as their journey wound down to a final close. After so long seeing only choppy blue-green water, the sight of the high cliffs were a relief. They were shelves of sheer slate grey ascending up from the water and the crashing waves, the sun brilliant and white overhead where it was just past mid-day.

But the wind... that was something else. And it was not a difference she could name right away either, just heat, and a sense in her mind that something wasn't quite right. The awareness came to her whenever she felt the wind turn and push against them from the land, rather than just continue to carry them along. It was a pressure against her sinuses, or a heat on her face when the air moved past them. She would have asked him what it was exactly, but Sesshoumaru became withdrawn and bleak enough that by the time she knew what had happened, he would barely look at her: never-mind provide enlightenment.

"Your lands..." When they touched down on the edge of his territory they were alone. Kagura's bare feet touched the land before his did, but only because Sesshoumaru seemed to hang back in the air rather than continue straight forward past it all. "...they're burning."

A gust of wind dredged up the ashes disturbed by her landing, the chalky grey rising and staining the hem of her white gown as the wind demon watched an up-draft from the sea cause the ash to move like smoke. Sesshoumaru didn't speak when he landed next to her, his feet stirring up considerably more of the fine grey soot than her own had.

The landscape was black, the remains of a forest still smouldering before her eyes. This was where the greenery had met the sea before, a place she had known: she had followed him here many times in the past, back before the storm. No one was here now though, no demon or spirit had survived or chosen to remain here after whatever had caused this new devastation...

She held her fan out slowly, the green silk spread and gathering a few eddies of air. Turning her wrist she let the wind travel down her arm and blow a path across the baked ground, searching through the ash for whatever remained. She wanted to know how long these fires must have been burning for there to be no grass left here, no sign or scent of life on the winds for many miles.

"Can you fix this...?" He stepped ahead of her, no longer right on the precipice of land and sea. Sesshoumaru walked boldly across the black ground, his footsteps muffled by the clouds of ash that followed him. It was already beginning to stain his clothes, soot catching on his fur. He stopped at her question, but didn't look back at her.

"It is not my job to spread seeds." No, no it wasn't. But if the lands were dead, incapable of spawning their own green life... Kagura looked at the green of her fan and clothing, remembering again, briefly, what she'd told the seamstress about leaves and grass. Her mate ruled a black land?

_'He restored me...'_

"Are you coming?" Yes, she was. Slowly folding her fan and hanging it from her belt, she was still wearing Eurus' rod against her left side, and quickly trotted after him where the Demon Lord had begun walking again. She didn't touch him, remaining a step back and to his right as they moved from what had been a small seaside field into a forest of charcoal sticks.

Passing one such charred stake, Kagura's eyes followed the mangled trunk down to the earth. She moved one finger and sent a breath of wind to shake the ash off a tiny, delicate, finger of green. The only life for miles.

_'So I...'_ Sesshoumaru would contend with the unwanted the demons and interlopers. Then _Kagura_... _'Will restore the land.'_ Even if it took one hundred years.

_'Even if it takes a thousand.'_

_**Fin.**_

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><p><strong>[Rolls Credits]<strong>

**Title: Restoring the Wind**

**Genre: Adventure/Romance**

**Main Characters: Sesshoumaru & Kagura**

**Chapters: 19.**

**Word Count: ~56,000**

**Page Count: 86.**

**OST: Room of Angels, Brothers in Arms, Iris, What's Left of Me, Dearest, Diamond, With You (AAA), Inuyasha OST (Kikyo's Heart, Wind Tunnel, Longing, To the End of Sorrow, Aika, Dearest BGM) Beautiful, The Voice Within, Kuon no Kawa, I Need a Doctor, District 9 OST Track 3.**

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><p><strong><em>To Make Things Right<em>: I love this story already! **Currently on the seventeenth chapter, you can expect much LONGER chapters (between 7-8 in length compared to RtW's 3-4), far fewer OCs, more direct interaction between Sesshoumaru and Kagura, and appearances by other members of the IY cast (yes that means Rin too). ****

**It's still currently in progress so I'm not sure when I'll begin publishing chapters. It might be this Tuesday if I decide to just start without finishing, possibly longer if I want the entire project completed first. **

**Let me know how you feel in your reviews! Should I just go ahead or are you patient enough to let me finish?**

**Either way, thank you very much for reading! I hope you've enjoyed following this story as much as I did writing it!**


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